Bob Moyer and I are both loyal fans of the late Tony Hillerman and his mysteries featuring the Navajo Nation Police. I have read one or two of the mysteries added to the series since Hillerman’s daughter Anne since her father died, but Bob beat me to this latest one. I will have to catch up.

Reviewed by Robert P. Moyer

SHADOW OF THE SOLSTICE. By Anna Hillerman. Harper. 336 pages. $30.

In 18 Leaphorn/Chee novels, Tony Hillerman created a body of work, unparalleled and unmatched since, of the Navajo Nation. He did it with an exquisite sense of the landscape and a deep understanding of the lore as well as the contemporary problems facing the People. He did this through two detectives, Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee, whose divergent ways of detecting the crimes Hillerman constructed were both enlightening and entertaining.

Since Hillerman’s passing, his daughter Anne has taken over authorship of the series. A good writer, not a great one, she has slowly raised the quality of her version of the series. In this, her 10th novel, she demonstrates her increasing skill at capturing the beauty of the landscape around Shiprock, and a commitment to both the lore and the local problems of the People. One thread of the story centers on a dead body found inside the fence of a uranium waste deposit, a scar on both the landscape and the history of the People.

The body appears just as a Cabinet secretary is coming from Washington to make an announcement at Shiprock. Also, a gathering of a suspicious environmental group takes up residence on a local ranch. It’s an overwhelming time for the Tribal Police, and especially Jim Chee and Bernadette Manuelito. Joe Leaphorn has retired (he’s 90 according to the books’ chronology).

Bernadette Manuelito is a character enhanced by Anne Hillerman. She’s married to Chee, who’s her superior. They both get dragged into investigation of the environmental group, while the arrival of the secretary hangs over them.

Meanwhile, Bernadette’s sister Darlene, not a police officer, discovers that a grandmother and her grandson are missing. The narrative follows her, as she traces them into the depths of a health-care scam that takes advantage of the People, and takes the reader all the way to Phoenix.

Both Chee and Bernadette Manuelito encounter danger, and it takes a lot of luck and ingenuity on both their parts to escape. Darlene finds the woman and the grandson, and draws Chee and Manuelito into the resolution.

Without Leaphorn, a certain tension is missing here; Chee and Manuelito take up a bit of the narrative with marital concerns. But, overall, Anne Hillerman has made eminently readable crimes committed under the Shadow of the Solstice.