NEVER-ENDING-SNAKE

Navajo Police Special Investigator Ella Clah has several cases to solve, including her own attempted murder.

When Ella, together with Kevin Tolino, the attorney father of her daughter Dawn, and war hero-turned-lobbyist Adam Lonewolf return from a trip to Washington, D.C., they are met at the tiny Shiprock airport by two men and a hail of gunfire. Tolino and Lonewolf, badly wounded, are rushed to the hospital and hidden away from the killers still stalking them, leaving Ella and her team to figure out who was the target of all those bullets. Tolino’s investigation of the dubious business practices of the company running the Navajo casino has ruffled a lot of feathers. Lonewolf has been lobbying an alternative-energy company interested in turning tumbleweed into fuel, an idea many traditionalist tribe members find abhorrent. And of course Ella’s long career as a police officer (Earthway, 2009, etc.) has made her enemies of her own. As Dawn schemes to reunite her parents, Ella wonders whether to take a lucrative job in D.C. and whether her romance with a minister with a mysterious intelligence background has any future. At the same time, she feels pressure to solve the difficult case. Lonewolf was carrying a Monopoly game stuffed with $75,000 in real money. Now that he’s in a coma, it’s up to Ella to figure out what the money was for.

Another middling mystery enlivened by its glimpse into the complicated lives of modern reservation dwellers.