As someone who has been reading about Jim Chee the Navajo
police officer for as long as he's been in paperback, I'm
delighted that Anne Hillerman took up the job of writing
her father's characters after his death. Tony Hillerman was
a fantastic mystery author with great regard for the
peoples and landscape of the Four Corners, and his daughter
is clearly into her stride with the twenty-second book in
the series.
CAVE OF BONES is found by a troubled teen girl from a
tribal re-education program. Annie Rainsong was hiking
out for some solitude and reflection, but got lost and
ended up in a cold, scary cave in the New Mexico lava
country. When she finally makes it back to camp, Domingo
Cruz, the educator who had gone to look for her, is still
missing. Officer Bernie Manuelito, married to Jim Chee, has
come out to the camp to talk with the girls, but finds
herself leading a search and rescue, as well as deciding if
the bones are an ancient burial or something more recent.
The Navajo respect ancestors greatly and never disturb
burials.
Sergeant Chee is in Santa Fe, New Mexico, taking updated
law classes with other agents. Trouble lives everywhere and
he's asked to check on a few people while he's in Santa Fe.
His wife's sister Darleen is studying at the Institute of
American Indian Arts, and Chee asking her for a friendly
meal turns into more trouble: Darleen is aggrieved at her
boyfriend. Said boyfriend is now hanging around with a man
Chee put away for violence. Darleen doesn't take orders
well, and Chee has to try to advise her gently.
The tales intertwine, a media studies project on a Navajo
reservation next to a missing ranch worker and an
allegation of diverted funding. The redrock country in
December is bitter cold with stinging winds, blowing snow,
and wildlife absent or hunkered down to survive. I like that we
see retired gentleman Joe Leaphorn again, recovering from a
nasty injury, passing on his store of memories about the
Four Corners denizens. The two different missing men can
make it a little hard to keep track of who was last seen
where or related to whom; the Navajo are strong on
kinships. Unusually in my reading to date of these books,
we meet a gay man, who is in a relationship with one of the
vanished men. Amusingly, Chee is at a seminar on finding
missing kids, through Amber Alerts, and missing elders who
wander off; but the missing subjects we see are mature men.
Anne Hillerman puts the emphasis on women investigators in
CAVE OF BONES, a tale to delight all fans of Native culture
crime stories.
New York Times bestselling author Anne Hillerman brings
together modern mystery, Navajo traditions, and the
evocative landscape of the desert Southwest in this
intriguing entry in the Leaphorn, Chee, and Manuelito
series.
When Tribal Police Officer Bernadette Manuelito arrives
to speak at an outdoor character-building program for at-
risk teens, she discovers chaos. Annie, a young
participant on a solo experience due back hours before,
has just returned and is traumatized. Gently questioning
the girl, Bernie learns that Annie stumbled upon a human
skeleton on her trek. While everyone is relieved that
Annie is back, they’re concerned about a beloved
instructor who went out into the wilds of the rugged lava
wilderness bordering Ramah Navajo Reservation to find the
missing girl. The instructor vanished somewhere in the
volcanic landscape known as El Malpais. In Navajo lore,
the lava caves and tubes are believed to be the
solidified blood of a terrible monster killed by
superhuman twin warriors.
Solving the twin mysteries will expose Bernie to the
chilling face of human evil. The instructor’s
disappearance mirrors a long-ago search that may be
connected to a case in which the legendary Joe Leaphorn
played a crucial role. But before Bernie can find the
truth, an unexpected blizzard, a suspicious accidental
drowning, and the arrival of a new FBI agent complicate
the investigation.
While Bernie searches for answers in her case, her
husband, Sergeant Jim Chee juggles trouble closer to
home. A vengeful man he sent to prison for domestic
violence is back—and involved with Bernie’s sister
Darleen. Their relationship creates a dilemma that puts
Chee in uncomfortable emotional territory that challenges
him as family man, a police officer, and as a one-time
medicine man in training.
Anne Hillerman takes us deep into the heart of the
deserts, mountains, and forests of New Mexico and once
again explores the lore and rituals of Navajo culture in
this gripping entry in her atmospheric crime series.
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