Officer Bernie Manualito pulls over a car for speeding. With each question, her 'perp radar' is heightened because the driver seems more and more agitated. When she asks the driver to open the truck, he promptly offers her a bribe. Cash and a rifle in the trunk. Seems odd to be offered a bribe for just a speeding ticket. Maybe that bucket of dirt in the truck means something. She issues the ticket and has the car impounded for a more detailed search. When the impound and ticket are entered into a law enforcement database, the FBI is notified. Doesn't take too long for the FBI to tell the Navajo Tribal Police to back off. The driver is on their radar for issues far exceeding speeding.
That sets the basic scene for the story. But it isn't an overwhelming problem. Manualito and husband Officer Jim Chee have planned a weekend camping in Monument Valley (of John Ford and John Wayne fame). Wile there, Jim will try to help a clan cousin get his tour bus service up and running while Bernie explores the park. First day, the local Navajo police station asks for some help with a nuisance group in the Park. A Hollywood studio is filming a zombie flick and the accounts manager has gone missing. Would Jim be able to find her? Sure, why not? He's there.
He manages to find the girl. She wasn't really lost at all. While heading back to their cars in the failing light, Chee trips over some rocks that, on a closer look, appears to be part of a grave. Burials on Native land are forbidden so Chee has another chore. While checking with the film crew, there's a security guy who takes his job a bit too seriously, a couple of teenage groupies who want a pic of the Zombie Queen, a German couple camping who've lost some keepsake jewelry while dispersing ashes of a deceased parent, a philandering producer up to no good. Ain't one thing, it's another.
And that's just on Chee's plate. Looks like he's staying while Bernie gets called back home because her wayward younger sister isn't keeping a close eye on their elder mother. Keeping her family unit as close as she can is getting to be a full-time job given her mom's failing health, her sister's love of beer and partying that could conflict with her attempt at getting into a Native American art school, and the constant intrusions by local coyotes and feral dogs. Plus a colleague's wife is hoping Bernie can convince her mother to teach the art of weaving. If it ain't one thing it's another. Family issues alone pry her mind away from that speeder, but so does the slowly developing encroachment of wind power to Navajo Nation land that seems to be inevitable.
For just her second novel, I thought Hillerman deftly juggled all those different little stories in an eventual (near) singular conclusion. I do recall that the Tony Hillerman books were firmly based in the Navajo culture and that for all the mysticism, skinwalkers, totems, etc. surrounding the stories, the root cause of the crime du jour was no different for the Navajo or the biligaana (whites) - money, power, drugs/alcohol, jealousy know no racial or ethnic bounds. The same applies here. Lots of little details that are seemingly unrelated told in a gentle and engrossing progression. No slam bam mega shootout or twisted conclusion here. It ends pretty much like you'd expect, with Jim and Bernie comfortably home at the trailer they inhabit beside a small river in the desert SW.
BTW. If you are wondering where the title comes from, it's the term for a specific rock formation near Shiprock, NM that has some spiritual meaning for the Navajo. And legendary Lt. Joe Leaphorn continues to recover from being shot in the previous book (Spider Woman's Daughter).
#3 Song of the Lion is next up.
ECD
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