PICTURE OF LIES
by C.C. Harrison
The austere beauty of Monument Valley hides a dangerous secret.
Keegan Thomas is an investigative reporter who specializes in child-abduction cases ever since her own daughter vanished from a quiet beach. An old photograph found in her grandfather’s belongings provides a reason to get away to the Navajo Indian Reservation and escape a breakup and her constant guilt and anger. The photo shows her grandfather, a BIA doctor on the reservation, with a group of other people both white and Navajo. After a rough start Keegan gets some help from Dante Covelli, an attractive archeologist working in the area, and Jilly Wolf, whose grandmother may supply some answers. Keegan finds it hard to get information, but she is told by Jilly’s mother that one of the children in the picture was taken by missionaries and never returned. When Jilly’s grandmother is murdered, Keegan begins to realize her innocent quest for information may be uncovering dangerous secrets from the past. It is only when she gets some help from a researcher at the National Archives that she realizes just how dangerous those secrets may be. Her life is in jeopardy more than once before she can unmask the killers.
Similar in feeling to Harrison’s romantic suspense mystery The Charmstone (2007), also set in Monument Valley. This one, although a bit implausible at times, offers a nice combination of action, romance and Navajo lore.