TJ J. (CraftyTJ) reviewed on 3/18/2007 + 381 more book reviews

The Summoning God is the sequel to The Visitant, in which archaeologist-authors Kathleen O'Neal Gear and W. Michael Gear introduced readers to murder, mayhem, and the myriad details of life in a 13th-century Native American pueblo. In both novels, the narrative arcs between the present and the past, drawing aside the seemingly thin veil of time that separates them. Here, as archaeologists Dusty Stewart and Maureen Cole sift through an ancient Anasazi kiva, attempting to understand the circumstances that could have led to the presence of 33 charred children's bodies in the ceremonial chamber, we also see the members of the pueblo as they move toward the terrible destruction so carefully unearthed by Stewart and Cole. This narrative device isn't revolutionary, but it is clever: the demands of classic mystery plotting (we have a corpse, but who committed the crime?) are fulfilled, while the reader lives simultaneously in the worlds of evidence creation and deduction.

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