An archaeologist spying on the midnight rites of a cult group inside an extinct New Mexico volcano is murdered -- felled by the brutal thrust of a prehistoric spear-throwing weapon called an atl-atl. All the evidence points to one of Sheriff Charles Matthews's own deputies, Raul Trujillo, as the killer. But Matthews doesn't buy it. And to prove his deputy's innocence, Matthews will take off his badge and step into a haunted southwestern landscape where vengeance is still a reason to kill . . .
D.R. Meredith, Doris to friends and family, has a split personality--by day, she is a conservatively dressed legal secretary at her husband Mike's law firm. By night she turns into Mrs. Hyde dressed in jeans, flip-flops, and Texas Rangers tee shirt, and commits bloody murder.
She is now in double digits. In her fourth book in the Megan Clark mystery series, the 18th book of her career, D.R. Meredith has just committed her 35th murder.
"I usually average 2 murders a book, because one murder in a closed circle of suspects usually leads to another in the accepted Agatha Christie fashion. In TOME OF DEATH there are two murders, but they occur 150 years apart. I like linking the past and present and exploring the effect our past has on our present. I can't tell how I use the past without giving a broad hint to the killer's identity, but I will say that human beings don't change over time except in dress and customs. My Comanche warrior amateur sleuth isn't all that different in emotional feelings from modern paleopathologist Megan Clark, except Megan isn't into scalping."