A Glimpse Into People of Darkness

The Navajo tribal police officer, Jim Chee, returns in this novel of mystery and death. Working out of Shiprock, New Mexico, officer Jim Chee finds himself temporarily reassigned to the small town of Crownpoint, New Mexico. Shortly after Chee's arrival in the little town of Crownpoint, he receives a mysterious request from a Mrs. Vines. Her plea is simple, she wishes officer Chee to recover a stolen box that she says contains family keepsakes but nothing of any real cash value. Her husband is ill and hospitalized and she simply wishes the box to be returned before her husband is released from the hospital. Her hope is that the stolen box's return will somehow speed up her sick husband's recovery.

Mrs. Vines' request seems simple enough to officer Chee but questions begin circling in our detective's head, questions like, if the box holds items of no real cash value then why go to the trouble of stealing it? And why is the owner willing to pay $3,000 for its safe return? Chee then begins to ponder the possibility of the stolen box containing a secret that the box's owner would rather like to remain a secret, and after the murder of a peyote chief from the People of Darkness clan, Chee is almost certain that this is the reason. And to make matters more complicated, the assassin now has a new target, officer Jim Chee.

Chee isn't alone in wanting to uncover this mystery, and he quickly makes friends with a local teacher, Mary Landon, who is also a white woman. Together, the two set out to investigate a 30 year old mysterious mining accident that is now believed to have been not an accident at all. Both Chee and Mary believe that the incident may hold the key to their current dilemma.