Paper Bridges - Joel Portice

FBI Special Agent Kellen Roberts is assigned to assist local law enforcement officials following the assassination of Minneapolis Mayor Jack Sorenson, who was killed with a single gun-shot two weeks after winning a bitter and contentious re-election that left the city almost evenly divided and exhausted from charges of corruption, greed, fraud, and racism leveled by the candidates against one another. Sorenson's opponent in the general election, Linda Green, an African-American community activist from the city's economically depressed north side, with her strong name recognition, scores of volunteers, and established political organization, is poised to win the special election to become mayor. Green's accession is what Ford Madison planned when he organized Jack Sorenson's murder

Through the discovery of a pair of secrets about Linda Green, Ford Madison needed her to win the special election in order to maximize the potential of the information he possesses. Enlisting the help of long-time friend, Carrie Charles, an Oglala Sioux resident from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation of South Dakota, who has grown increasingly lonely, angry, and despondent since the preventable death of her brother, U.S. Army veteran Myron Charles, Ford created a vacancy that would likely be filled by Green.

As the investigation into Mayor Sorenson's assassination grows, clues lead Agent Roberts to Wounded Knee, South Dakota, the site of an 1890 Indian Massacre and a 1973 occupation by the American Indian Movement, where, as a newly commissioned FBI agent, Roberts was assigned to enforce the government's position against the insurgents. Roberts' return to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, his first visit since 1973, forces him to confront the consequences of his actions during the seventy-one day standoff between the U.S. Government and AIM. His flashbacks remind him of the tension and deadly exchanges that occurred during confrontations with members and sympathizers of AIM, but also of the rugged and spiritual beauty of the environment in western South Dakota. Pursuing the killer of Mayor Sorenson on the reservation reveals emotions and discoveries that conflict with the agent's ability to complete the investigation and bring the murderer to justice.

Meanwhile, despite the exhaustion felt by the residents of Minneapolis from the negative tone of the previous mayoral campaign, and being emotionally drained from the murder of their city's senior public servant, the special election in Minneapolis advances as mandated and in the direction Ford anticipated. His manipulation of the secrets involving candidate Linda Green will be exploited as planned. With a plot to flee the country following the election in order to protect his friend and preserve his financial windfall, Ford discloses the secrets to the general media and expects to monitor the fallout from a distant, remote location.

The novel is adult fiction that takes place between contemporary Minneapolis and Wounded Knee and incorporates certain historical facts about the AIM occupation of Wounded Knee during Agent Roberts flashback sequences. The themes of the story involve family, greed, politics, deception, and racial divide.

EAN: 9781432782627