I have long been a lover of Tony Hillerman stories. I enjoy the cultural landscape that surrounds his mysteries, and appreciate the cultural tensions in which his characters struggle and flourish. This book displays that same depth with the same quality mystery that typifies Hillerman's work. Now, his writing is as deep as P. D. James, but that's okay. Jim Chee and Joe Leaphorn are two good main characters, and they again put their detecting skills to work to solve a murder and a disappearance. Chee is a Lieutenant with the Navajo Tribal Police and Leaphorn is a recently reteired Lieutenant. These long time partners find themselves working on the same case, with Chee investigating the murder of fellow Tribal Officer Kinsman while Leaphorn is working as a PI to investigate the mysterious disappearance, around the same time and place as the murder, of a vector control officer studying a recent case of Bubonic Plague. Chee was the first one on the scene of Kinsman's murder, and captured a suspect literally "red handed." But his former fiance and defense attorney for the accused, Janet Pete, insists that there's more than meets the eye. The mystery takes the two all across the desert southwest, and into the world of vector control and research into contagious disease. As they figure out that Cathy Pollard has disappeared in the same vicinity and at the same time as the murder, they must figure out if and how the two events are related. Is she a suspect? Another victim? An unrelated disappearance.
This book is vintage Hillerman, and I enjoyed it. It made me yearn for the southwest, and if gas wasn't so expensive I'd hit the road for Santa Fe or Albuquerque to take in some sopapillas and some desert scenery.
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