Published by HarperCollins, 1986, 299 pages
Sgt. Jim Chee of the Navajo Tribal Police is sleeping in his trailer when he is woken by his neighbour, a feral cat, who comes in through the cat flap in the door. The cat comes into his trailer only when something scares it. Chee gets out of bed to see what might have frightened the cat, and discerns a shape in the darkness. Someone is out there, being very quiet. Until the quiet is shattered by three shotgun blasts, aimed at his bed.
When Chee examines the trailer, he is troubled by the fact that one of the bullets is actually a bone bead, which points to a skinwalker, a malevolent witch who can transform into an animal. A skinwalker blows a bit of bone into their victim, whose life can only be saved if the skinwalker is killed. Has someone mistaken Chee—who is starting to practice as a yataalii, a medicine man—for a skinwalker?
In the meantime, Lt. Joe Leaphorn—also of the Navajo Tribal Police—has three unsolved homicides on his hands: Irma Onesalt, a bureaucrat, who was shot in her car; Dugai Endocheeney, an old man, stabbed; and Wilson Sam, a sheep herder who had been hit with a shovel. One of the suspects is Roosevelt Bistie, who had threatened to kill Endocheeney and whose car was spotted at the Endocheeney hogan around the time of the killing.
But Bistie confesses to shooting Endocheeney, not stabbing him. And then he is killed. A bone bead is found in Endocheeney’s wound and another in Bistie’s wallet. Is this a case of witchcraft?
Leaphorn and Chee join forces to solve the murders and the shooting at Chee’s trailer.
This is part of a series of crime novels by Tony Hillerman set on the Navajo reservation in the Four Corners area of New Mexico and Arizona, and the landscape is almost a character in its own right. Hillerman evokes the American southwest so vividly that it comes alive. His descriptions of the Navajo people and their customs is detailed and authentic—he used to make a point of consulting with the Navajo to make sure his descriptions were accurate.
This is the first time when two of his main characters, Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee, are brought together.
I read several of these novels a couple of decades ago and have gone back to them now after watching Dark Winds (Netflix series) that is based on them. I love the books not only because they take me into the world of the Navajo but are also well-plotted whodunits that often also raise social issues.
Definitely a series worth discovering.
