WINTER COUNTS

When his troubled 14-year-old nephew, Nathan, is endangered by a new heroin operation on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota, hired muscle Virgil Wounded Horse must rely on more than his fists to save him.

Narrator Virgil, a member of the Lakota Nations, is a vigilante-style bruiser whom victims and their families turn to when, thanks to an indifferent federal justice system and a toothless tribal court, sexual assaults and other violent crimes aren't prosecuted. Falsely busted after pills are planted in his school locker, forced to make drug buys while wearing a wire and then mishandled by agents, Nathan is the latest victim of systemic malfeasance. Virgil, his nephew's guardian since the rap-loving boy's mother (Virgil's sister) was killed in a car accident, finds himself in way over his head with the bad guys. His unlikely ally is his combative ex-girlfriend, Marie Short Bear, an ardent believer in the Native rituals for which he has no use: "I didn't do ceremonies." She's also the daughter of a shady councilman running for tribal president. Like its protagonist, the novel is rough around the edges. Key characters have a way of fading from view, and things get talky just when the action is picking up. And at one point, Weiden makes rather odd use of cartoonlike action words including "BANG!" and "Missed!" Weiden is at his best allowing Native culture to curl naturally around the mystery plot. A ceremonial scene in which Virgil has a harrowing vision of being present at the massacre at Wounded Knee is a bit heavy-handed but affecting nonetheless.

A solid if inconsistent crime novel.