A Ritual Death

A LEGACY OF LIES AND BLOODSHED

Beneath the serene surface of LaConner, Washington--popular and picturesque small town on the Northwest's Puget Sound--trouble is brewing between the local and Native American communities: a growing storm of suspicion and violence incited by long-standing prejudice ... and recent murder.

As he does every year, Jesuit priest Father Mark Townsend has come to LaConner to visit his grandparents during the annual Tulip Festival in the Skagit Valley. But this time a corpse awaits him--the body of his grandfather's best friend, Dutch Olsen, a man well known for his hatred of Swinomish Indian fishing practices, and for his passion for illegal treasure-hunting on tribal lands. Now Father Townsend is caught in the middle of a volatile conflict involving stolen artifacts and vanishing salmon crops. And it's up to him to solve a mystery that could mark his grandfather as a murderer ... and bring deadly crimes of the past to life again.