The first in the Alix Thorssen series.

Reviews
In this gripping debut, a Wyomng art expert and consultant for the FBI returns to her home state of Montana to appraise a trailer full of stolen art for the local plice. The evening of Alix Thorssen’s arrival, her sister’s husband is arrested for the murder of a woman named Shiloh, spiritual leader of a woman’s group called the Manitou Matrix. Although Alix can’t believe her brother-in-law, an anthropology teacher, would have killed Shiloh, his knife may be the murder weapon. Moreover, he admits to having had a loud argument with her the day before when, incensed that someone hadcut the limbs off a tree sacred to the Native American Salish tribe, he had questioned Shiloh and her group. Taking on the job of proving his innocence, Alix gets a call from a woman asking her to authenticate a Jackson Pollock painting. When that woman is found murdered nearby, Alix discovers that the victim had also been trying to locate an artifact known as the Bluejay Shaman. Because Shiloh, too, was looking for the elusive Bluejay pictograph, Alix focuses her search on the ancient stone. Ancient rituals and the powerful Montana landscape are deftly integrated in this suspenseful tale.
-- Publisher’s Weekly

Wyoming art dealer and master forgery expert Alix Thorssen returns to her Montana birth place to help the FBI appraiser the contents of an abandoned van loaded with stolen or fake art and artifacts. Alix is looking forward to a pleasant visit with her sister Melina and her brother-in-law Wade, an Indian rights activist. However, on her first day home, the police arrest Wade, charging him with the murder of a New Age mystic, whom hr previously got into a violent allocation for camping on the reservation. Though the evidence might be circumstantial, there is plenty to convict the man. There were many witnesses to their fight; Wade has no alibi; and his knife has been identified as the murder weapon.

The two sisters know that Wade is not a homicidal maniac. They vow to prove he is innocent. Acts of vandalism against sacred Indian and church relics seem to be the center of the maelstrom surrounding Wade, but the puzzle’s pieces do not seem to fit together. Alix must find the common link between the murder, the stolen artifacts, the vandalism, and the disappearance of documents related to the mysterious Bluejay Shaman if she wants to solve the case. Otherwise, Wade will probably be convicted of a crime he did not commit.

The female protagonist incorporates the idealism of the sixties into a nineties’ pragmatism. This combination makes for a compelling, enriching, and challenging character who is difficult to understand, but easy to like. The Indian way of life is sewn into the very seams of the story line; thereby, making an exciting, unique who-done-it that is culturally informative without being preachy. Lise McClendon is a storyteller who has a bright future ahead of her if she continues to write novels as good as The Bluejay Shaman.
-- Ed’s Internet Book Review: Mystery/Thriller/Suspense - Review by Harriet Klausner

‘Bluejay Shaman’ is lively debut novel

Author Lise McClendon created a savvy, interesting character, Alix Thorssen to star in her book. “The Bluejay Shaman,” which is newly published by Walker.

Thorssen owns an art gallery and knows a lot about Native American history and lore. But when her brother-in-law is arrested for murder on the Salish reservation in Montana, Thorssen comes to his rescue, using her expertise in the art and culture world to look into the events surrounding the death.

Westerners will enjoy the locales and environments familiar to many – the Flathead area with it hills and mist, the town of Missoula, the area around Polson and the characters who inhabit the drama. WE also get a look into the customs of the Native Americans, and McClendon handles this with respect and appreciation.

The descriptions are apt and well-drawn – and the dialogue is generally snappy and intelligent. And slowly, we get information about the murder of Doris Merkin and how professor Wade Fraser came to be involved.

In one scene, vandals have broken into the historic St. Ignatius Mission on the Flathead Reservation, destroying statuary and defacing artworks. Two murals, painted when the mission was built in 1891, are lsahsed and another badly damaged. In another, we see ribbons of light on Lolo Pass. So description plays heavily on many levels. And there aremany intense sessions with interrogation and piecing together of details as the locals and the FBI get involved.

Our hero is appealing, too. She’s had some bad luck in the area of relationships, and talks with her happily married sister on the phone. She wines and dines and dresses up, but she also isn’t above fixing herself a tuna sandwhich and talking on the phone while munching.

The eccentric investigator often finds herself in a landscape of color and detail. And throughout the twists andf turns of the plot, there is humor – an essential with characters, unless they take themselves too seriously.

“The Bluejay Shaman” is fun to read and entertaining – not too long – and with short, readable chapters.

McClendon is at work now on her second Alix mystery. A publishing party at Walkers Grill recently attracted many friends from the publishing world, and fans and colleagues of the author.
-- Billings Gazette - Review by Christine C. Meyers, Arts & Leisure Editor

Alix Thorssen has an art gallery in Wyoming, an expertise that law enforcement agencies often call on and a clunker of a car she calls the Saab Sister.

She also has a sister in Montana whose husband is in trouble. Alix is already visiting her sister, Melina Fraser, while she’s working on a job for the Missoula City Police Department. So Alix is there when Melina finds out her husband, Wade, an anthropology professor at the University of Montana, has been arrested for murder.

Wade spends most summers at the Salish reservation. This time, though, a woman dies while he’s there. It doesn’t look good: He argued with her, and she was stabbed with his knife.

It seems to be up to Alix to set things right. As she begins to immerse herself in the Salish culture – and running into the wanna-be’s who aren’t Indians but are steeping themselves in New Age mysticism – she realizes the murder is tied to a Bluejay photograph. Then there’s another murder.

Alix saves the day, but not without getting herself into some hot water first.

“The Bluejay Shaman” is one of those books that snags your attention immediately. Alix is quirky, independent and fun to read about.
-- Books Editor of the News-Sentinel - Review by Jan Maxwell Avent