Query Letter: Never Name the Dead: A Thoughtful, Award Nominated Debut

Never Name the Dead, D.M. Rowell’s wonderful debut, centers on Mae “Mud” Sawpole, a successful Silicon Valley professional, who is unexpectedly called home to her Kiowa community by a cryptic message from her grandfather.  There, she quickly gets caught up in a mystery involving stolen cultural property, greed, and murder.  It's easy to see why this book was nominated for the Mary Higgins Clark award. The story is extremely engaging, and Mud is an intelligent, multi-dimensional heroine who is impossible not to root for. 

You can check out this excellent book, which Eric Redman called “mystical and magical” here. Next on your reading list: the upcoming sequel, Silent Are the Dead, which I'll be ordering.

Rowell was kind enough to share the query that got a deal for Never Name the Dead (originally titled My Name is Mud):

In my book, My Name is Mud (Malice domestic mystery, 85,876 Words), I blend Silicon Valley ingenuity and Native American spirituality to solve a murder in Kiowa Country.

No one called her Mud in Silicon Valley. There, Mae was a respected professional who had left her Kiowa roots far behind. But when her grandfather called, she had to go back and face her childhood rejection by the tribe. She owed him that. What she didn’t expect was that this visit was only the start of a traditional four-day vision quest that would take her into dark places involving theft, betrayal, murder—and a charging buffalo. And that was only Day One. 

My Name is Mud is the first in a planned murder mystery series. The first four books follow successive days with each day flowing to the next, emulating stages in a Kiowa spiritual vision quest as Mud stumbles, rights herself and finds her place in both worlds, Silicon Valley and Kiowa Country, all while solving murders. The quest begins with Mud discovering her spirit animal while she struggles to solve a theft and murder in Kiowa country. 

Like Mud, I come from a long line of Storytellers. I’m an award-winning and nominated producer/writer on several documentaries, including Vanishing Link: My Spiritual Return to the Kiowa Way, winner of TrailDance 2007 Best Oklahoma Documentary. It premiered on PBS and was accepted in the Kiowa Tribe Plains Indian Collection at the Smithsonian Institution. Two other award-winning documentaries have premiered on Showtime and aired on LOGO. 

As a child, I was heavily influenced by my traditional Kiowa Grandfather, C. E. Rowell. He was the tribe’s recognized historian, the Reader of our Calendars and a master storyteller. I was twelve when my Grandfather pointed at me with his chin, in the style of the old ones, and decreed, “You. You will keep these stories alive. You are next.” I have never forgotten that moment or responsibility.

After a thirty-two-year career spinning stories for corporations and Startups with a few escapes into independent documentaries, I have given myself permission to do what I have always wanted to do, write a murder mystery series that entertains while sharing the traditions of my Plains Indian tribe, the Kiowas. 

I have worked with Professor/Author Carolyn Wheat to complete the third draft of my novel. Carolyn has deemed it ready and has encouraged me to “get it out there.” I created a site to promote the book at www.dmrowell.com and made the first twenty pages available. Visitors are enjoying the pages and demanding more. You can see comments here, http://www.dmrowell.com/readers-comments.html

Thank you for your time,

[Name and contact]