Bootheel Man

When Allison Culbertson takes the case of Joey Red Horse, an Osage Indian charged with stealing a sacred artifact from The Heartland Mound Builder Museum, she finds herself in the middle of a courtroom battle pitting contemporary American Indians against a private museum over legal rights to the bones of “Bootheel Man,” a Native American who lived, fought, and loved in Cahokia and Southeast Missouri in the year 1050. Swingle combines the historical mystery of the disappearance of the 30,000 souls who inhabited Cahokia ten centuries ago with a contemporary murder mystery and legal thriller in a suspenseful mix of history, law, and fiction.

“Move over Tony Hillerman — Morley Swingle has transformed the contemporary conflicts over deep American history into a page-turning book that I couldn’t put down. As a professional museum archaeologist, I found Bootheel Man to be a nuanced appreciation of the reburial and repatriation issues now playing out across the country. Swingle is a true storyteller. The conflicts are real and so are Swingle’s characters — no wooden Indians here.”
— David Hurst Thomas, Curator of Anthropology, American Museum of Natural History

“Bootheel Man is Morley Swingle’s third book and second novel, and it proves that some lawyers can actually write entertainingly.”
— Harry Levins, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

“This exciting and clever tale adeptly entertains and educates about the serious and dangerous problem of desecration of sacred tribal cultural items. Swingle takes us from a dramatic present-day crime back to 1050 Cahokia to introduce readers to the artist Gazing Woman and chunkey-player Thunder Runner, then back again to the present and the indigenous people who try to protect ancestral remains. Learning about the passion and tenacity of the Old Ones while they were a living man and woman, rather than simply as “artifacts” to be studied, displayed or sold on the black market, elevates the story to an important, personal level.”
— Devon Mihesuah, Cora Lee Beers Price Professor, University of Kansas