ARC Review: Mask of the Deer Woman by Laurie L. Dove

Mask of the Deer Woman
Author: Laurie L. Dove
Publication: Berkley (January 21, 2025)

Description: To find a missing young woman, the new tribal marshal must also find herself.

At rock bottom following her daughter’s death, ex–Chicago detective Carrie Starr has nowhere to go but back to her roots. Starr’s father never talked much about the reservation where he was raised, but the tribe needs a new marshal as much as Starr needs a place to call home.

In the past decade, too many young women have disappeared from the rez. Some have ended up dead, others just…gone. Now local college student Chenoa Cloud is missing, and Starr falls into an investigation that leaves her drowning in memories of her daughter—the girl she failed to save.

Starr feels lost in this place she thought would welcome her. And when she catches a glimpse of a figure from her father’s stories, with the body of a woman and the antlers of a deer, Starr can’t shake the feeling that the fearsome spirit is watching her, following her.

What she doesn’t know is whether Deer Woman is here to guide her or to seek vengeance for the lost daughters that Starr can never bring home.

My Thoughts: Carrie Starr has just taken a job as marshal on the reservation in Oklahoma that her father came from. She's running from her past and trying to outrun her grief at the death of her seventeen-year-old daughter. She left the Chicago PD under a cloud. Now, she's self-medicating with whiskey and weed.

The BIA has hired her because so many indigenous women are missing or murdered. A dozen or so have disappeared from the reservation where Carrie is working. She arrives to find that another young woman has gone missing. Her mother is certain that foul play is involved. Carrie isn't so sure and doesn't put her all into the investigation. Then the body of another young woman is discovered which ramps up her investigation.

Meanwhile, we also hear part of the story from some other viewpoints including the town mayor and a local rancher who are both depending on an oil company deciding to do some fracking on reservation land and who might have reasons to want the first missing young woman to stay missing. She's investigating the possibility that there is a rare colony of rare beetles somewhere on the reservation. Proving it will scuttle the mayor and rancher's plans and cost them lots and lots of money.

The story was very atmospheric and introspective. It was hard reading about Carrie's grief and seeing her make bad choices. I liked the legend of the Deer Woman which infused the whole story.

I received this one in exchange for an honest review from NetGalley. You can buy your copy here.

Audiobook Review: Sacred Ground by Mercedes Lackey

Sacred Ground
Author: Mercedes Lackey
Narrator: Katie Anvil Rich
Publication: Tantor Audio (August 22, 2023)
Length: 11 hours

Description: From the New York Times bestselling author Mercedes Lackey comes contemporary fantasy Sacred Ground.

Jennifer Talldeer is Osage and Cherokee, granddaughter of a powerful Medicine Man. She walks a difficult path: contrary to tribal custom, she is learning a warrior's magics. A freelance private investigator, Jennifer tracks down stolen Native American artifacts.

The construction of a new shopping mall uncovers fragments of human bone, revealing possible desecration of an ancient burial ground. Meanwhile, the sabotage of construction equipment at the site implicates many activists—particularly Jennifer's old flame, who is more attractive and dangerous than ever. Worst of all, the grave of Jennifer's legendary Medicine Man ancestor has been destroyed, his tools of power scattered, and a great evil freed to walk the land.

Jennifer must make peace with the many factions and solve the mystery of her ancestor's grave before the world falls into oblivion.

My Thoughts: This story stars Jennifer Talldeer who is a private investigator and the granddaughter and apprentice of her grandfather who is a powerful medicine man. She's Osage and Cherokee. While she has many of the usual PI cases, her real joy comes from locating Native American artifacts and returning them to their tribes.

She is hired by an insurance company to determine whether the contractor for a new mall is hiding things that would make him uninsurable. Rod Calligan has a reputation for doing shoddy work. But problems at his latest site which include the explosion of one of his machines the killed four seems to be a step up. And when Native artifacts are discovered on the site, many of his Native American crew are refusing to continue work. 

Neither Jennifer nor her grandfather were aware of any Native burial site at that location and think that it was a cache that was discovered - a cache Calligan was planning to sell to the highest bidder. But things quickly take a turn to the paranormal when strange things begin to happen. Calligan had discovered the burial place and medicine bag of an evil spirit and the evil lives on and is trying to find a new place in the world. 

Meanwhile, Calligan is trying to accomplish an insurance scam by staging a series of "accidents" that will allow him to declare bankruptcy and get out from under a project he knows will be unsuccessful since he's already skimmed all the profit he can. He wants to cast blame for the failure on his Native American crew which brings in Jennifer's old boyfriend David Spotted Horse who has become an Indian Activist. 

This was a suspenseful mystery combined with lots of Native American mythology. I enjoyed it a lot. 

I bought this one from Chirp August 21. You can buy your copy here.

ARC Review: Havoc by Deborah J. Ledford

Havoc
Author: Deborah J. Ledford
Series: Eva "Lightning Dance" Duran (Book 2)
Publication: Thomas & Mercer (July 30, 2024)

Description: In this tightly paced sequel to Redemption, Eva “Lightning Dance” Duran joins the Taos Pueblo tribal police department to uncover a member of her community’s murder…and the conspiracy behind it.

It’s been over a year since the case that almost broke her, but when Eva “Lightning Dance” Duran is called back to duty, she doesn’t hesitate to answer. A bank robbery has left an officer down and a suspect on the run. Law enforcement is in hot pursuit, and residents are on the lookout―but before anyone can catch the criminal, tragedy strikes.

A member of the Taos Pueblo tribe has been shot and killed. The culprit? An untraceable 3D printed gun. With the support of fellow tribal cops, Eva breaks the news to the victim’s family and swears to find justice.

More violence follows, feeding the rising racial tensions between the Taos Pueblo people and the Hispanic community. New evidence forces Eva to consider the possibility that the bank robbery and 3D guns are related, but until she figures out how, there’s no telling how deep this crime ring goes…or how far its evasive ringleader will go to protect it.

My Thoughts: The second Eva "Lightning Dance" Durand thriller deals with a bank robbery, 3D printed guns, and the death of a child who had one of those fake guns. 

The story is told from multiple viewpoints and includes chapters from various characters in the book. The bank robber's point of view illustrates his complete lack of humanity. Other viewpoints include both Eva and her boyfriend/fellow police officer Cruz and young Kai Arrio who is a biology student training a Belgian Malinois. We hear from Tomas Salas who was Kai's favorite teacher in high school and who has big dreams for the Pueblo reservation but a horrible way of realizing them. We hear many other viewpoints too. 

The viewpoints are all woven together into a fast-paced suspenseful story. It is also a story about grief and loss and life on the Pueblo reservation near Taos. I enjoyed it very much. 

Favorite Quote:

"Nothing new. You ready for this?" Cruz asked when they reached the long black vehicle. 

"Nope," she said. "Let's go."

I received this one in exchange for an honest review from NetGalley. You can buy your copy here.

ARC Review: Blood Sisters by Vanessa Little

Blood Sisters
Author: Vanessa Little
Publication: Berkley (October 31, 2023)

Description: A visceral and compelling mystery about a Cherokee archeologist for the Bureau of Indian Affairs who is summoned to rural Oklahoma to investigate the disappearance of two women…one of them her sister.

There are secrets in the land.

As an archeologist for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Syd Walker spends her days in Rhode Island trying to protect the land's indigenous past, even as she’s escaping her own.

While Syd is dedicated to her job, she’s haunted by a night of violence she barely escaped in her Oklahoma hometown fifteen years ago. Though she swore she’d never go back, the past comes calling.

When a skull is found near the crime scene of her youth, just as her sister, Emma Lou, vanishes, Syd knows she must return home. She refuses to let her sister's disappearance, or the remains, go ignored—as so often happens in cases of missing Native women.

But not everyone is glad to have Syd home, and she can feel the crosshairs on her. Still, the deeper Syd digs, the more she uncovers about a string of missing indigenous women cases going back decades. To save her sister, she must expose a darkness in the town that no one wants to face—not even Syd.

The truth will be unearthed.

My Thoughts: This historical mystery is set in 2008. Syd Walker is an archaeologist for the BIA. She's sent home to Oklahoma when a skull is found on the land where a terrible tragedy occurred when she was young. The skull has one of Syd's old IDs in its teeth.

Syd has a number of issues. Her wife has just become pregnant, and Syd is conflicted about being a parent. She also doesn't want to go back to Oklahoma which was the site of her worst experience. But her sister Emma Lou has disappeared. Syd fears that she is using drugs again and that is why she left. She has been an addict off-and-on since she and Syd survived a home invasion that killed their best friend and her parents. But everyone insists that she wasn't using again. 

Syd finds herself looking for her sister and trying to find out who sent the message with the skull to her. And who is leaving her cryptic clues saying "Find me." And everyone seems to be keeping secrets. 

This mystery hits a lot of key notes: missing indigenous women, an area filled with poverty and drugs, and the results of lead pollution after mining is stopped. And through it all is the role of the BIA who is Syd's employer.

This was an excellent story about a woman almost consumed by survivor guilt who manages to finally come to terms with what she did. The story was packed with action and danger and even included a tornado. 

I enjoyed this story and will be looking for more about Syd Walker.

Favorite Quote:

"You should get paid for the land, finally, and be compensated for the pollutions and remediation."

"How about an ass like JLo while we're dreaming," she says with a snort. 

"I'm not joking, Aunt Missy. It's not right."

I received this one in exchange for an honest review from NetGalley. You can buy your copy here.

ARC Review: Redemption by Deborah J. Ledford

Redemption
Author: Deborah J. Ledford
Series: Eva "Lightning Dance" Duran (Book 1)
Publication: Thomas & Mercer (September 1, 2023)

Description: From award-winning author Deborah J Ledford comes a thrilling new series featuring a Native American sheriff’s deputy who risks it all to find a friend who’s gone missing.

After four women disappear from the Taos Pueblo reservation, Deputy Eva “Lightning Dance” Duran dives into the case. For her, it’s personal. Among the missing is her best friend, Paloma, a heroin addict who left behind an eighteen-year-old son.

Eva senses a lack of interest from the department as she embarks on the investigation. But their reluctance only fuels her fire. Eva teams up with tribal police officer and longtime friend Cruz “Wolf Song” Romero to tackle a mystery that could both ruin her reputation and threaten her standing in the tribe.

And when the missing women start turning up dead, Eva uncovers clues that take her deeper into the reservation’s protected secrets. As Eva races to find Paloma before it’s too late, she will face several tests of loyalty—to her friend, her culture, and her tribe.

My Thoughts: REDEMPTION is the first in a new contemporary series starring a Native American Sheriff's Deputy who is willing to put it all on the line to find her missing friend. Paloma has been her friend since childhood. But a car accident that killed her husband and two others and left her severely injured has left her with chronic pain an addiction to any sort of drug she can find to relieve it. Paloma was once the most famous hoop dancer in the Southwest. 

When Paloma goes missing only Eva and Paloma's eighteen-year-old son Kai are willing to look for her. Paloma has burned her bridges with the tribe because she was stealing in order to support her habit. 

This story is told from multiple viewpoints. We hear from Eva, and from Kai, and from Paloma, and from Alice the traveling nurse who is determined to find a cure for the drug addiction that is making inroads on the reservation and who especially wants to save Paloma since she has been a fan since she first saw her dance.

The story deals with real life problems. Drug addiction and dealing in drugs find a fertile ground on Indian reservations for a number of reasons including their large size and sparse population. This story also deals with people trying to meet other people's expectations which is something Eva is dealing with being the only Native American and one of few women in the Sheriff's Department. 

This story wasn't a who dunnit. We knew the criminal. We knew her motives and watched her mental state deteriorate. The tension came from wondering if Eva would be able to follow the clues fast enough to save her friend before the villain killed her accidentally. 

I liked the action. The rafting scenes to get to a body were graphic and exciting. I liked the characters. 

Favorite Quote:

"Now what?" Kai asked. 

"Now we wait for the cavalry."

"Because that worked out so good for our people in the past," Kai deadpanned.

She almost laughed, then caught his serious tone and spiraled down the path of doubt, right along with the younger member of her community.

I received this one in exchange for an honest review from Kindle First. You can buy your copy here.

Audiobook Review: Sinister Graves by Marcie R. Rendon

Sinister Graves
Author: Marcie R. Rendon
Narrator: Isabella Star LaBlanc
Series: Cash Blackbear (Book 3)
Publication: Recorded Books (October 11, 2022)
Length: 6 hours and 9 minutes

Description: Set in 1970s Minnesota on the White Earth Reservation, Pinckley Prize-winner Marcie R. Rendon’s gripping new mystery follows Cash Blackbear, a young Ojibwe woman, as she attempts to discover the truth about the disappearances of Native girls and their newborns.

A snowmelt has sent floodwaters down to the fields of the Red River Valley, dragging the body of an unidentified Native woman into the town of Ada. The only evidence the medical examiner recovers is a torn piece of paper inside her bra: a hymnal written in English and Ojibwe.

Cash Blackbear, a 19-year-old Ojibwe woman, sometimes helps Sheriff Wheaton, her guardian, on his investigations. Now she knows her search for justice for this anonymous victim will take her to the White Earth Reservation, a place she once called home.

When Cash happens upon two small graves in the yard of a rural, “speak-in-tongues kinda church,” Cash is pulled into the lives of the malevolent pastor and his troubled wife while yet another Native woman dies in a mysterious manner.

My Thoughts: The third Cash Blackbear mystery starts when a body floats into Ada during one spring Red River flood. The unidentified Native woman has only one clue: a torn page from a hymnal written in English and Ojibwe.

Since its Spring Break, Cash has time to help Wheaton do some investigating. Her investigation takes her onto the White Earth Reservation. She was born there but has been in the foster system since she was three years old and was raised on an assortment of farms owned by White people. 

Cash meets an older Native lady who understands Cash's gifts and who offers her a medicine bag to help protect her as she is investigating. And Cash needs the protection as her investigation leads her to an isolated church with some strange beliefs and a pastor with mesmerizing appeal. 

This was another exciting episode in an engaging series. This one talks about Native women and their babies and just how vulnerable they were and still are. The author's note talks about the many, many bodies of Native kids recently found on the grounds of the boarding schools that they were forced to attend. 

The setting is very well done in this story. The reader can certainly feel Cash's love for the Red River Valley in every page. Cash's resilience and emotional fragility make her an amazing character. 

I bought the Kindle and added the audiobook. You can buy your copy here.

Audiobook Review: Girl Gone Missing by Marcie R. Rendon

Girl Gone Missing 
Author: Marcie R. Rendon
Narrator: Siiri Scott
Series: Cash Blackbear (Book 2)
Publication: Blackstone Publishing (August 18, 2020)
Length: 6 hours and 48 minutes

Description: Her name is Renee Blackbear, but what most people call the 19-year-old Ojibwe woman is Cash.

She lived all her life in Fargo, sister city to Minnesota’s Moorhead, just downriver from the Cities. She has one friend, the Sheriff Wheaton. He pulled her from her mother’s wrecked car when she was three. Since then, Cash navigated through foster homes and at 13 was working farms, driving trucks. Wheaton wants her to take hold of her life and signs her up for college. She gets an education there at Moorhead State all right: sees that people talk a lot but mostly about nothing, not like the men in the fields she’s known all her life who hold the rich topsoil in their hands, talk fertilizer and weather and prices on the Grain Exchange. In between classes and hauling beets, drinking beer, and shooting pool, a man who claims he’s her brother shows up, and she begins to dream of the Cities and blonde Scandinavian girls calling for help.

My Thoughts: The second Cash Blackbear novel has Cash starting college which she finds a really alien environment. Between hippies and flower children and the growing American Indian Movement, she's being introduced to all sorts of things that haven't come into her world before. She used to working for farmers, drinking beer, smoking and shooting pool. She been in her own apartment since she was thirteen and Wheaton got her out of her last abusive foster home. 

When a college girl goes missing for no apparent reason, Cash finds herself introduced to the white slavery industry which is also something new to her. Another new thing is the reappearance of her brother. She hasn't seen him or heard anything about him since she was taken from her mother as a small child and started on the parade of foster homes. Mo tracks her down and moves in to get to know her. He's a recently discharged Vietnam veteran who was a medic and who has come home with PTSD. They spend time together drinking beer and shooting pool. 

Cash is doing well in college. So well, in fact, that she opts to test out of her freshman English and science classes. Her results on her English final are so good that her professor enters her into an essay contest which will result in her first trip to the Twin Cities for the award ceremony at Macalaster College. And it results in her own encounter with white slavery.

I really enjoyed this story. The setting is familiar to me since I am also a Minnesotan although the Red River Valley is on the opposite side of Minnesota from where I grew up. Cash and I would be near in age and, although our life experiences couldn't be more different, some aspects were completely familiar. 

I liked the author's note that talks about real problems faced by Native American women. 

I got this one from Audible Plus. You can buy your copy here.

Audiobook Review: Murder on the Red River by Marcie R. Rendon

Murder on the Red River
Author: Marcie R. Rendon
Narrator: Siiri Scott
Series: Cash Blackbear Mysteries (Book 1)
Publication: Soho Crime (October 5, 2021); Blackstone Publishing (July 21. 2020)
Length: 220 p.; 6 hours and 3 minutes

Description: Introducing Cash Blackbear, a young Ojibwe woman whose visions and grit help solve a brutal murder in this award-winning debut.

1970s, Red River Valley between North Dakota and Minnesota: Renee “Cash” Blackbear is 19 years old and tough as nails. She lives in Fargo, North Dakota, where she drives truck for local farmers, drinks beer, plays pool, and helps solve criminal investigations through the power of her visions. She has one friend, Sheriff Wheaton, her guardian, who helped her out of the broken foster care system.

One Saturday morning, Sheriff Wheaton is called to investigate a pile of rags in a field and finds the body of an Indian man. When Cash dreams about the dead man’s weathered house on the Red Lake Reservation, she knows that’s the place to start looking for answers. Together, Cash and Wheaton work to solve a murder that stretches across cultures in a rural community traumatized by racism, genocide, and oppression.

My Thoughts: The first Cash Blackbear mystery introduces a fascinating character. Renee Blackbear, nicknamed Cash, is a Native American teen who was placed in the foster care system when her mother had a car accident while drunk. She's been moved from one farm family to another all around the Moorhead area. She began working - for Cash - when she was just eleven and emancipated herself from an especially nasty foster home at the age of thirteen with the help of the local sheriff who fills the role of guardian and mentor. 

Cash's life consists of working on various farms, smoking, drinking beer, and shooting pool. Every once in a while, she gets a vision that helps Sheriff Wheaton solve a crime or two. This latest crime concerns the death of a Native man who had come down from the Leech Lake reservation to earn some cash to help his family through the winter. Her visions lead her to the reservation where she meets his wife and some of his seven kids. Snooping around in the local Fargo-Moorehead bars lets her overhear some guys talking about the guy's death. After another death, this time of a white guy, Cash overhears enough to point Sheriff Wheaton to the bad guys but not before they kidnap her and threaten to murder her.

This was a gritty sort of mystery filled with early 70s details including the pervasive prejudice against Native American and the systematic attempts to destroy Native culture. Cash is a victim of it as she spent a childhood separated from her family and in a succession of foster homes very often abusive. 

I really liked Cash. She was resilient and very bright. But she was also a loner who doesn't form attachments to anyone but Sheriff Wheaton. Without him pushing her to do something with her life beyond farm work, she's content to just drift. 

I can't wait to read more of Cash's adventures. 

I bought this one on Kindle and then added the Audible Plus audiobook. You can buy your copy here.

Friday Memes: Murder on the Red River by Marcie R. Rendon

 Happy Friday everybody!

Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Rose City Reader. The Friday 56 is hosted at Freda's Voice. Check out the links above for the rules and for the posts of the participants each week. Don’t dig for your favorite book, the coolest, the most intellectual. Use the CLOSEST.

Beginning:

Sun-drenched wheat fields. The refrain ran through Cash's mind as she pulled open the Casbah's screen door. She stood still. Momentarily blinded, she waited for her eyes to adjust to the darkened barroom.

Friday 56:

Cigarette after cigarette got her into Ada -- the county sear -- at about three in the afternoon. Wheaton's cop car sat outside the jail.

This week I am spotlighting Murder on the Red River by Marcie R. Rendon. I discovered this book because of a BookBub email and then learned that it had been a One Book, One Minnesota selection for Summer 2021. Then I got another email recommending the series that was sent by Angeline Boulley whose Firekeeper's Daughter and Warrior Girl Unearthed I just loved. It seemed meant that I read this one.

Here's the description from Amazon:

Introducing Cash Blackbear, a young Ojibwe woman whose visions and grit help solve a brutal murder in this award-winning debut.

1970s, Red River Valley between North Dakota and Minnesota: Renee “Cash” Blackbear is 19 years old and tough as nails. She lives in Fargo, North Dakota, where she drives truck for local farmers, drinks beer, plays pool, and helps solve criminal investigations through the power of her visions. She has one friend, Sheriff Wheaton, her guardian, who helped her out of the broken foster care system.

One Saturday morning, Sheriff Wheaton is called to investigate a pile of rags in a field and finds the body of an Indian man. When Cash dreams about the dead man’s weathered house on the Red Lake Reservation, she knows that’s the place to start looking for answers. Together, Cash and Wheaton work to solve a murder that stretches across cultures in a rural community traumatized by racism, genocide, and oppression.

ARC Review: Never Name the Dead by D. M. Rowell

Never Name the Dead
Author: D. M. Rowell
Series: A Mud Sawpole Mystery
Publication: Crooked Lane Books (November 8, 2022)

Description: Old grudges, tribal traditions, and outside influences collide for a Kiowa woman as forces threaten her family, her tribe, and the land of her ancestors, in this own-voices debut perfect for fans of Winter Counts.

No one called her Mud in Silicon Valley. There, she was Mae, a high-powered professional who had left her Kiowa roots behind a decade ago. But a cryptic voice message from her grandfather, James Sawpole, telling her to come home sounds so wrong that she catches the next plane to Oklahoma. She never expected to be plunged into a web of theft, betrayal, and murder.

Mud discovers a tribe in disarray. Fracking is damaging their ancestral lands, Kiowa families are being forced to sell off their artifacts, and frackers have threatened to kill her grandfather over his water rights. When Mud and her cousin Denny discover her grandfather missing, accused of stealing the valuable Jefferson Peace medal from the tribe museum—and stumble across a body in his work room—Mud has no choice but to search for answers.

Mud sets out into the Wildlife Refuge, determined to clear her grandfather's name and identify the killer. But Mud has no idea that she's about to embark on a vision quest that will involve deceit, greed, and a charging buffalo—or that a murderer is on her trail.

My Thoughts: This mystery introduces Mae Sawpole who is a Kiowa currently working in the Silicon Valley as a firm that gets companies ready for their IPOs. She is under deadline and having problems with her partner messing things up when she gets a call from her grandfather back in Oklahoma which gets her on the next plane to see him.

Mae, who is known as Mud in Kiowa country, is surprised when her grandfather isn't waiting for her when she gets off the plane. She is even more surprised at her welcoming committee. A counselor in the tribe, an old friend of her grandfather, and a woman who seems to have an agenda are all looking for her grandfather.

She heads to her grandfather's home with Wilson, the old friend, but he seems to be doing everything possible to delay her. When she finally gets to her grandfather's she finds a Wilson dead in her grandfather's private workroom. 

Mud had to figure out how to find her grandfather who has been accused of stealing a priceless Peace medal and who just might be a suspect in Wilson's death. It doesn't take much time for Mud to discover that there is some illegal fracking going on somewhere on Kiowa land and also that an unscrupulous art dealer is searching out and selling priceless Kiowa artifacts including the one her grandfather is accused of stealing. 

This was an engaging story steeped in Kiowa history and culture. Mud is an intriguing character who is torn between her life in California and her life in Oklahoma. Her grandfather is currently the Kiowa story keeper, and he has trained Mud to be his successor, but she can't do that from California. Nor can she run her business from Oklahoma. 

This story does bring some of the plot threads to a successful conclusion, but quite a few others, including Mud's future, are left dangling for future books in this series. 

Favorite Quote:

My mind churned with increasingly dark thoughts. What was going on with Buck and Wilson and the Jefferson Peace medals and fracking? How did Grandpa fit into this mess?

I received this one in exchange for an honest review from NetGalley. You can buy your copy here.

Book Review: The Blessing Way by Tony Hillerman

The Blessing Way
Author: Tony Hillerman 
Series: A Leaphorn and Chee Novel (Book 1)
Publication: HarperTorch; Reprint edition (March 7, 1990)

Description: From New York Times bestselling author Tony Hillerman, the first novel in his series featuring Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn & Officer Jim Chee who encounter a bizarre case that borders between the supernatural and murder.

Homicide is always an abomination, but there is something exceptionally disturbing about the victim discovered in a high, lonely place—a corpse with a mouth full of sand—abandoned at a crime scene seemingly devoid of tracks or useful clues. Though it goes against his better judgment, Navajo Tribal Police Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn cannot help but suspect the hand of a supernatural killer.

There is palpable evil in the air, and Leaphorn's pursuit of a Wolf-Witch leads him where even the bravest men fear, on a chilling trail that winds perilously between mysticism and murder.

My Thoughts: This mystery introduces Joe Leaphorn, a police officer on a Navaho reservation in the Southwest. He is a Navaho who is also college educated and who served in the military with duty in Korea. His case this time deals with the death of Luis Horseman who was wanted for questioning after a knife fight. When his body was found 100 miles from where Joe expected him to be and his cause of death was unusual, Joe begins to visit people and ask questions.

Meanwhile, Joe's friend anthropologist Bergen McKee is summering on the reservation looking for information about Wolf-Witches for a paper he is planning to write. McKee is traveling with archaeologist J. R. Canfield who is exploring Anasazi ruins. McKee is also talking to people about rumors of witchcraft.

Joe's investigation and McKee's overlap since opinion on the reservation is that Horseman's death was caused by a witch. And both investigations find them encountering an unexpected villain with murderous intentions. 

The mystery was interesting and well-plotted and took some unexpected turns. I enjoyed becoming immersed in Navaho culture and beliefs as I read this story. I liked the way Leaphorn fit into his environment and altered his investigative style to fit with the culture. Leaphorn was an interesting character that I would like to know more about. Luckily, this is the first of a long series. 

Favorite Quote:

He saw no tire tracks and he expected to see none. That would have been luck. Leaphorn never counted on luck. Instead he expected order--the natural sequence of behavior, the cause producing the natural effect, the human behaving in the way it was natural for him to behave. He counted on that and upon his own ability to sort out the chaos of observed facts and find in them this natural order. Leaphorn knew from experience that he was unusually adept at this.

This was a Christmas gift from a friend. You can buy your copy here.