Harper
Published June 22, 2025
Reviewed by Barbara Fister
There’s a lot going on in Shiprock, New Mexico, where Navajo Nation police are getting ready for a possible visit by the Secretary of Energy, the details of which are frustratingly sketchy as the security situation is evaluated by the feds. Jim Chee is growing itchy in a job that has him spending too much time at his desk, a situation made more demanding as the Captain is sidelined by a medical emergency. Bernadette Manualito, Chee’s wife, is busy checking out an abandoned car, responding to a missing person report, and checking out a tip from an anonymous source. If the tipster is correct, the body of a murdered man might be lying inside an area that is off limits due to the presence of uranium waste.
The story opens as a runner stumbles across the body, and it is that encounter that ties together two plot lines that crisscross throughout the book. The teen who finds the body is struggling after his mother’s death, falling into alcoholism and drug use. He’s intrigued when he gets word that a free rehab program is available and tells his grandmother he wants to go. Though she is not an alcoholic, she thinks she could use some free counseling, too, while keeping an eye on her grandson. There’s something suspicious about the program. When a van comes to pick them up, she climbs aboard and they are driven across the desert to Phoenix, stopping from time to time at businesses that sell alcohol, heightening her suspicions.
Bernie Manualito’s sister Darleen is a health worker who is startled to find the grandmother missing from her home. She raises the alarm as Chee meets with FBI agents who will be taking over the murder investigation. It’s clear they know more than they’re telling, and as Chee prepares for a contentious high-stakes visit from an official from DC, Bernie responds to a concern about a group of environmentalists who may be planning mischief during the visit. They’ve erected a large sweat lodge against the wishes of the owners of the property where they are camped, part of a mass solstice event. It soon becomes clear to Bernie that she’s dealing with an extremist cult, and their sweat lodge is a disaster waiting to happen.
Hillerman has developed two engaging stories, both inspired by real world events–fatalities at a ceremony run by a new age guru a few years ago and, more recently, a spate of fraudulent rehab programs that targeted vulnerable natives, leading to investigations of over a hundred fake sober homes like the one in this novel. With the murder uncovered in the opening chapter as a connection between the two story lines, readers weave between the two, anxious to find out what’s happening in each.
But it’s not all action and pacey plotting. Readers familiar with the series will enjoy the attention paid to Chee, Bernie, Darleen, and their lives. Bernie’s mother is living with them, now, requiring tricky scheduling to provide care for her dementia. Darleen has to work things out with her boyfriend, and contemplates a career change. Chee wrestles with his own career trajectory, which might send him from the field to a desk-bound job.
One hopes Mrs. Raymond, the grandmother who travels to Phoenix with her grandson, will become a regular. She’s a delightful character, wise, stubborn, prone to ask questions, open to new experiences but embedded in a traditional culture that informs everything she does. It is her experience, navigating an increasingly troubling and dangerous situation, that animates the novel, adding new threads to the Navajo tapestry that Hillerman weaves so skillfully.