Middlemarch by George Eliot *****

In Middlemarch, Miss (Dorothea) Brooke, Miss (Rosamond) Vincy, and Miss (Mary) Garth all married against the advice of the patriarchs and most everyone else. Though their marriages were difficult, they persevered and followed their own paths to a happy life.  Set about two decades after Jane Austen’s books, this opus (800 pages) of village life expands on Austen’s themes and scope. Read Austen first. If you love Austen, this is the next step.

The women all have strong (and sometimes misguided) opinions.

“Surely,” said Dorothea, “it is better to spend money in finding out how men can make the most of the land which supports them, than in keeping dogs and horses only to gallop over it.”

With small changes this could be repeated in the 21^st century.

“If anybody was to marry me flattering himself, I should wear the [hideous mourning clothes] two years for him, he’d be deceived by his own vanity, that’s all.”

“Oh, dear, because I have always loved him. I should never like scolding anyone else so well, and that is a point to be thought of in a husband.”

On the subject of marriage, the author makes two strong points:

1)    Never expect the marriage to be an improvement over the courtship.

2)     Marriage is work, but with love and perseverance it can bring happiness.

The author discusses privilege the same as someone might do today.

“When a youthful nobleman steals jewelry we call the act kleptomania, speak of it with a philosophical smile, and never think of his being sent to the house of correction as if he were a ragged boy who had stolen turnips.”

Another observation appropriate to the current day:

“But oppositions have the illimitable range of objections at commend, which never need stop short at the boundary of knowledge but can draw forever on the vasts of ignorance.”

“For the egoism which enters into our theories does not affect their sincerity; rather, the more our egoism is satisfied, the more robust is our belief.”

The scope of Middlemarch includes UK politics of the 19^th-century Reform Bills, the risks of debt, gambling as a disease, the folly of class, and the history of medicine.

Remember the plot device where a play script calls for one actor to kill another actor, but the second actor really dies? George Eliot used that plot device in 1871.

George Eliot throws out many good one-liners. She would have been great on Twitter.

“Among all forms of mistake, prophecy is the most gratuitous.”

“I think any hardship is better than pretending to do what one is paid for, and never really doing it.”

A novel of strong women in the nineteen century for Austen readers who want more, much more.

Check out https://amazon.com/shop/influencer-20171115075 for book recommendations. 

The Wives of Los Alamos by TaraShea Nesbit *****

The Wives of Los Alamos by TaraShea Nesbit is a beautiful prose-poem written in the first-person plural covering the development of the atomic bomb during the years 1943-1945…from the perspective of the wives. “We married men just like our fathers, or nothing like them, or only the best parts.”

The book focusses on four groups: the wives, the scientists, the military, and the indigenous people.

The wives, at the center of the action, were diverse, but mostly European, educated, and forceful. Though the military nominally controlled everything, and their husbands were occupied by research and development, they found ways to get what they wanted, including jobs, recreation, education for their children, domestic help, and fresh vegetables. Much of their activities included observing the others.

The scientists come across like stereotypical scientists.

“Many of them cared a lot about utility and nothing for appearances. If it were their choice our bookshelves, dining room chairs, and coffee tables would all be made of industrial materials like steel. Thankfully for us, these materials were difficult to come by during the war.”

For a while, they were proud of what their husbands had accomplished (atomic bombs). When they watched the news, they told their children “That’s what your father made” while thinking, “Our husbands who could not repair a clogged shower drain.” “Our husbands who could not swim or drive a car.”

The military was stuck at Los Alamos. Most wish they were where the action was in Europe or the Pacific. The wives had little to do with most of the military, except for some harmless flirting and petty conflicts with the WACs who ran the commissary, housing office, and almost everything else. There was one exception.

“We had a fondness for the engineering division.” “They were men with undergraduate degrees.” “Surely, they annoyed the MPs and sergeants with…their thick glasses, their gangly bodies with paunchy stomachs. And when they marched on weekends with the rest of the military, they were placed in the back of the caboose, and each of their steps was miraculously out of sync with the others.”

Indigenous women provided domestic help. The wives made friends with these women. “We tutored their sons in English after school and they taught us how to make more northern New Mexico dishes—tortillas, posole, and corn cooked in the Indian way. They learned to make our peanut butter sandwiches, but we never learned the delicious secret of their…fried bread.”

An evocative story of life at Los Alamos during World War II. Not an introduction to the development of the atomic bomb, but a beautiful supplement.

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The Shape of Night by Tess Gerritsen ****

Ava Collette is an author, suffering from guilt for a drunk New Year’s Eve transgression which she is self-medicating with copious amounts of alcohol. She has retreated to an old, possibly haunted, house on the coast of Maine, Brodie’s Watch. How haunted? She had BDSM sex encounters with the ghost, Captain Jeremiah Brodie who died 150 years ago. All this might have been fine until the body of a young woman washes up in the harbor.

The sex is pretty explicit with references to breasts, nipples, ripped dresses, and leather cuffs. “Say it.” He leans closer. “Say you will submit.” My voice is barely audible. “I will submit.” Her reaction to this treatment is, “Captain Brodie has ruined me for the touch of a real man.” I would have preferred a stronger female protagonist-certainly no Rizzoli or Isles here.

Ava, when she wasn’t entranced by the ghost, investigated the 150-year history of women dying at Brodie’s watch up to the most recent murder evidenced by the body washed up in the harbor. Aside from the ghost, there were almost no suspects until the reveal. I found the reveal a bit incomplete and disappointing.

A supernatural, horror, romance thriller from Tess Gerritsen, the author of Rizzoli and Isles.

Check out https://amazon.com/shop/influencer-20171115075 for book recommendations. 

Fredrick Douglas by David W Blight *****

FredrickDouglass identified “three sets of excuses,” for the terrorizing and murder of blacks. Prior to the Civil War: “insurrection,” during reconstruction: “negro supremacy,” and afterward: “rape.” From the late 1830s to the early 1890s he campaigned (unsuccessfully) for black civil rights. Throughout this long (850 page) biography, David W Blight reflected on the similarities between the 19^th and 21^st century.

Winner of 2019 Pulitzer Prize in History

I had imagined the Civil War had been between the slaveowners in the South and the abolitionists in the North. Fredrick Douglass, and the author, made a convincing case that the culture of white supremacy was endemic throughout the country. Even the abolitionists believed in a fundamental white supremacy. For this reason, following the Civil War, the South quickly recovered its position of power, and the negros never rose above theirs of servitude.

Douglass felt the South won the war. After the Civil War amendments (13, 14, 15) overturned Dred Scott (1857), the Supreme Court again came down on the side of states’ rights when employed against blacks. Consider: US vs Cruikshank (1876). “The [Supreme] Court overruled the conviction of Louisiana whites who attacked a political meeting of blacks… The justices ruled that the Fourteenth Amendment did not give the federal government power to uphold convictions against whites.” Again in 1883, US vs Stanley, the Supreme Court upheld the right for individuals to discriminate against blacks. Compare this to the contemporary discussion of doctors and bakers discriminating against women and gays.

Douglass ended his life campaigning against lynchings. Compare this to the contemporary Black Lives Matter movement.

Before the Civil War Fredrick Douglass lectured against slaveholders in the South, but also against the churches in the North that might be against slavery but were also supporters of white supremacy. During the war, he reiterated this message: “We shall be fighting a double battle against slavery at the South and against prejudice and prescription at the North.”

A story of a great man and the apparently persistent racism of the United States. One of Fredrick Douglass’s unwelcome messages was that racism existed throughout the country and the culture. This book is more enlightening than optimistic.

Check out https://amazon.com/shop/influencer-20171115075 for book recommendations.

Close to the Bone by Lisa Black ***

Theresa MacLean discovers a violent murder in the Medical Examiner’s office. One of the deskmen has been beaten to death and the other one is missing. While this murder and the subsequent ones appear to be the mystery, these deaths are solved, and a ten-year-old closed murder case replaces them as the real mystery. In the interim, Theresa is kidnapped and trapped in a car trunk while her assailant is himself murdered. Along the way, after a slow start, a steady stream of violence and plot twists keeps the story moving until Theresa unravels the mystery. Unfortunately, a long list of innocent corpses remains after the unmasking of the single guilty party who started it all.

Much of the plot depends on the failure or ineffectiveness of modern technology. The surveillance cameras do not record. A cell phone cannot be traced. DNA for the fetus is lost. Fingernail scrapings only contain the victim’s DNA. One suspect has someone else’s fingerprints in the personnel file. Those fingerprints cannot be traced. A key piece of evidence (a valuable ring) is lost and does not appear in the crime scene photos. Many of the important records are not computerized, requiring searching through old ledgers. Even a car trunk doesn’t have the ubiquitous internal release.

The general anti-technology tone is summed up, “The computer is a tool to narrow down possibilities and point us in the right direction. But if we’re already pointed in a direction, then there’s no need to go through the extra and pointless work involving the computer.”

Theresa is responsible for trace analysis, but she follows up on all clues regardless. She is attacked by several men, all characterized as being larger and stronger than she is. She defends herself with whatever is at hand: a steak knife, a glass jar. For the most part, she does not need to be rescued. She might appear even stronger if she didn’t periodically turn into a teenage girl with a crush.

Close to the Bone by Lisa Black is a forensic mystery with a high body count that depends more on detective work than forensics.

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Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood ***

The Blind Assassin is Iris Chase Griffen’s story of her and her sister’s life. The life stories are interspersed with a novel written by Laura Chase and published by her sister Iris Chase Griffen following Laura’s suicide. Laura’s novel is also called The Blind Assassin and tells the story of two lovers. In turn, the male lover is a Science Fiction author who tells a third story about a blind assassin (a book within a book within a book). The Chase daughters are born into a well-to-do family, but with economic setbacks, they become victims of the Griffens.

Characters:

Iris Chase Griffen: The narrator and protagonist of the tale.

Laura Chase: Iris's sister, whose suicide opens the book and who is named as the author of the novel within.

Richard E. Griffen: Iris's ruthless, older husband with political ambitions.

Winifred Griffen Prior: Iris's fashionable, manipulative, and social-climbing sister-in-law.

Alex Thomas: A young author with Communist sympathies who has an affair with Iris and is one of the protagonists in the novel within.

Cpt. Norval Chase: The father of Iris and Laura. After being seriously injured in World War I and later widowed, he begrudgingly runs the family button business while descending into alcoholism and depression.

Reenie: The loyal Chase family housekeeper who becomes like a mother to Iris and Laura.

Myra Sturgess: Reenie's daughter (possibly by Cpt Chase), who aids Iris in her old age.

Aimee Adelia Griffen: Iris's daughter.

Sabrina Griffen: Iris's granddaughter.

Some of the story concerns marriage, inheritance, and the imbalance between powerful men and powerless women. In these cases, I was reminded of Jane Austen.

While this is a story of abuse, there is some retribution at the end. This is a difficult read and I’m not sure if it was worth the effort.

Check out https://amazon.com/shop/influencer-20171115075 for book recommendations. 

The Stand by Stephen King *****

TheStand by Stephen King consists of three books. Book I explores the question: What happens if an apocalypse kills over 99% of the human population? Book II: How will the post-apocalyptic world be organized? Book III resolves the conflicts from Book II. This novel can be characterized as good versus evil but might be better thought of as the parallel chronicles of good and evil.

At one level, the book supports people with disabilities. Tom Cullen never got past third grade. He can not read or write. Nick Andros is a deaf-mute. Donald Merwin Elbert (Trashcan Man) is a schizophrenic pyromaniac. The other characters all have more typical insecurities and flaws. Regardless, everyone contributes regardless of their challenges.

At another level, the book concerns the environment. With most of humanity gone, the environment recovers. The wild animals return, and the air and water improve.

While most of the book adheres to known science, the plot occasionally depends on people communicating through dreams and/or common hallucinations. In Book II people migrate to Boulder or Las Vegas depending on their dreams. This is strangely reminiscent of the migrations to  Devil’s Tower in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Both works were in development at the same time. That itself might be credited to a common hallucination between the two pop culture giants: Steven Spielberg and Stephen King.

While the book frames much of the conflict as good versus evil, with references to Hitler and sin, I expect the real story lies elsewhere. “No, I can’t accept the idea that we’re all pawns in some port-Apocalypse game of good and evil, dreams or not. Goddammit, it’s irrational!”

Note: Depending on the printing, this book is between 1200 and 1500 pages. On a per-page basis, the Kindle edition is a real bargain.

SPOILERS FOLLOW

While the GOOD (Mother Abigail in Boulder Colorado) and the EVIL (Randall Flagg in Las Vegas Nevada) imagine they are in conflict (at war) with each other, the resolution is that EVIL self-destructs and GOOD prospers independently. A short postscript shows Randall Flagg in some primitive civilization starting over. This postscript could be interpreted in many ways, or it could have been left out entirely.

Stephen King’s optimistic view in this post-apocalyptic world can be summed up: “The effective half-life of evil is always relatively short.”

Evans Above by Rhys Bowen *****

Evan Evans is a Police Constable in the North Wales village of Llanfair. He has no gun and no car. He is expected to walk the village and respond to calls from Mrs. Powell-Jones reporting that someone has stolen her prize tomatoes. When two men apparently fall to their death on Snowdon mountain, none of the official detectives are interested in his theory that they were murdered. He is not easily discouraged.

In addition to receiving no respect for HQ, the entire town is working to get Evans married. The two leading candidates are Betsy, the sexually forward barmaid from the Red Dragon Pub. The village seems to have two churches and a single pub. The second candidate is the local schoolteacher, Bronwen Price, who keep arriving when the shy Evans has failed to discourage the forward Betsy. This is the comic relief.

Evans Above by Rhys Bowen is book one in a ten-book series.

A murder mystery where a simple accident becomes more and more complex as the story unfolds.

Check out https://amazon.com/shop/influencer-20171115075 for book recommendations. 

The Tales of Two Bullies ***

The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving are two books, both written long ago (1978, 1820) with similar stories. In both books, the sympathetic protagonist is thoroughly defeated by an arrogant bully. Florence Green purchased the Old House to run a bookshop in the small town of Hardborough. The hapless Ichabod Crane is the country schoolmaster who organized the church choir in his spare time (instructs psalmody). Both of these gentle souls acquire the enmity of powerful people, almost by accident. In both cases these rivals destroy them.

The Bookshop is a story of privilege and power. Once Florence Green purchases the Old House for her bookshop, Mrs. Violet Gamart decides she wants the building for an Art Centre. Florence refuses to sell.

Mrs. Gamart’s campaign to put Florence out of business includes forcing her assistant to fail the 11+ examination. How serious is this? The girl’s mother explains: “She’s the first of ours not to get to the Grammar. It‘s what we call a death sentence…she’ll be pegging out her own washing until the day she dies.”

One source of bookshop income was a lending library supported by subscriptions. “The lending library, which after all had been a steady if modest source of income, was now closed for good. This was because for the first time in [Hardborough’s] history a Public Library had been established.”

Ultimately, Mrs. Gamart’s nephew pushed a Private Bill through Parliament that allowed the town council to condemn the Old House and acquire it for nothing. The stock went to the bank to cover the mortgage, leaving Florence Green penniless. The story ends with the bully’s judgment that Florence brought this upon herself. “As the train drew out of the station, she sat with her head bowed in shame, because the town in which she lived for nearly ten years had not wanted a bookshop.”

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is a story of a gentle schoolmaster aspiring for the hand of the most desirable young woman in the area, a Dutch heiress, “the lovely and wealthy Katrina Van Tassel.” His rival is “Brom Van Brundt, the hero of the country round, which rung with his feats of strength and hardihood.” Ultimately Brom frightens Ichabod away.  The narrator blames this ending on Ichabod: “That there is no situation but has its advantages and pleasures, provided we will but take a joke as we find it.” This is the response of contemporary bullies when they ask, “Can’t you take a joke?” The conclusion is so unpleasant that the tale closes with a repeat of the “just joking” excuse: “Faith, sir,” replied the storyteller, “as to that matter, I don’t believe one half of it myself.”

(Both stories have supernatural elements.)

Two stories without morals or justice. If you are good and mind your own business, you can still be attacked and destroyed. 

Sea People by Christina Thompson *****

Sea People by Christina Thompson documents the current solution to the “problem of Polynesian origins.” The problem addresses “the Polynesian Triangle, an area of ten million square miles in the middle of the Pacific Ocean,” bigger than North America and 99.9% water. The European explorers took three centuries to fully discover some thousand scattered islands. The questions about who the Polynesians were have been hindered by prejudice and arrogance. Today (published 2019) “the latest science brings us closer to the oral history of the Polynesians.”

Polynesia consists of high islands (volcanic peaks) and low islands (reefs).

Tupaia of the Society Islands accompanied Cook to New Zealand. This provided one of the first hints that all the Polynesian peoples were related. Tupaia and the Maori of New Zealand could understand each other, even though their homes were separated by a distance of over 2,500 miles of open ocean.

Somehow the irony that Western civilization expected Polynesian oral traditions to be literally factual when this was not demanded of the Bible seemed completely missed by everyone.

Two advances in the latter half of the twentieth century clarified the situation on Polynesia. (1) Carbon-14 dating. This technology took the guesswork and uncertainty out of the timeline. Interestingly, the verified time lime more closely matched the timeline derived from the oral histories than from competing scholarship. (2) Polynesian Voyaging Society. In this time, voyages were made across wide expanses of the Pacific (e.g., Hawaii to Tahiti) using no western navigation methods. Using stars and swells and birds, many canoe voyages were able to navigate over these long distances.

The work about and by Polynesian was hampered by racism.

During WW II airmen were trained in survival skills learned by Polynesian anthropologists.

The European explorers and anthropologists brought many incorrect ideas to bear on the investigation of Polynesia. Early on they believed that the land in the southern hemisphere had to balance the northern hemisphere, so in spite of all evidence to the contrary, they searched for Australis Incognito. For a period, they were convinced that the Polynesians were Aryans (Indo-European) as opposed to African or Asian.  Other theories suggested that the Polynesian drifted from island to island at the whims of the weather and currents.

The latest science concerning the origin of the Polynesians validates their oral histories. Comprehensive, fascinating, and readable.

Check out https://amazon.com/shop/influencer-20171115075 for book recommendations. 

Eggs on Ice by Laura Childs ****

Eggs on Ice by Laura Childs (Crackleberry Club #8) opens with Suzanne Dietz and her friend Toni at the dress rehearsal for A Christmas Carol when the ghost stabs and murders Ebenezer Scrooge played by Allan Sharp. Allan is an accountant and a developer with many enemies. Suzanne gives chase after the ghost. The ghost threatens her. She vows to find out who is in the ghost costume. That is not the only murder.

Suzanne, Petra, and Toni own the Crackleberry Club Café. While solving the mystery, they also have plenty of time to post menus, serve breakfast and lunches, hold a Christmas tea, and cater Allan Sharp’s funeral visitation and a wine and cheese fundraiser for Hope Church. So, plenty of food and a little sleuthing.

Other characters include Junior (Toni’s deadbeat ex-husband), Mayor Mobley (corrupt), Sheriff Roy Doogie (eats a lot, quickly, and often), Reverend Ethan Jakes (fundamentalist and new to town), and Don Shinder (Allan Sharp’s partner). In addition to eating, we have a funeral, a nighttime cross-country ski church fundraiser, and a Christmas toy drive. Aside from the murders, Kindred is a wholesome city.

Maybe a spoiler, but more of a complaint. Mysteries generally require murderers to have motives beyond just random psychopathic killings. This book comes close to a random psychopathic killing.

“But why did you kill Hardwick?”

“To throw everyone off track.”

A delightful cozy murder with plenty of parties, food, and recipes.

Check out https://amazon.com/shop/influencer-20171115075 for book recommendations. 

Skipping Christmas by John Grisham *

SkippingChristmas was quickly released as Christmas with the Kranks. This trite and predictable novel became a disappointing movie reviewed with: “A mirthless movie as fresh as last year's fruit cake, Christmas with the Kranks is a coarse, garish comedy that promotes conformity.”

The story opens with CPA Luther Krank deciding to skip Christmas because his daughter Blair will be away and to use the saved money to take a Caribbean cruise with his wife. This follows with a series of slapstick sketches about reactions to this unexpected behavior.

The movie received a dismal 5% on Rotten Tomatoes to spite Chris Columbus writing the screenplay from a Grisham novel and stars like Tim Allen, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Dan Aykroyd.

The book caricatures the police, firefighters, neighbors. It is also racist. In addition to all the trivial complaints and inconveniences, Luther Krank worries that his daughter might marry someone with dark skin, leading up to his celebration that her fiancé is lighter skin than a tanned Luther.

Hard to believe John Grisham is the author.

Instead of reading SkippingChristmas, I’d recommend skipping Skipping Christmas.

Check out https://amazon.com/shop/influencer-20171115075 for book recommendations. 

Educated by Tara Westover *****

Educated by Tara Westover could be the non-fiction companion to It by Stephen King. The parallels are striking. Both tell the story of children raised in horrific circumstances and their courageous, and unlikely, struggle to overcome their childhoods. Both recount brutal bullying, abusive parenting, misogyny, and the PTSD-like aftermath. If any readers of Stephen King’s novel imagine he exaggerated the humanity underlying his story, you only need to read Tara Westover’s memoir.

Tara makes the case that her father suffers from bipolar disorder. Whether this is true or not, she makes a powerful statement about how a parent’s behavior can affect the children. Regardless of the underlying cause, her father was controlling and misogynistic. When she needed protection from abuse, he supported her abuser. When she needed support, he attacked her. As a result, she suffered from years of insecurity.

When Tara was sixteen, she gathered enough courage to leave home to go to college. In college, she learned of a world beyond her family and began to see how her family had entrapped and endangered her. However, her early training in loyalty and obedience made her doubt these new views. As a result, she repeatedly returned home, only to be furthered abused, until she learned the lesson again.

 Alternately, this memoir is a stark testimony for alternative medicine. Her family avoided hospitals in favor of homeopathic tinctures, energy works, and faith. The family had plenty of chances to turn to medical doctors. Three severe automobile accidents, three head traumas, two serious burns, broken bones, and various other traumas. These were treated without traditional medical services. In all cases, people survived with home treatments.

Her family had seven children. Today three have PhDs and four have not graduated from college. Her parents founded and run the successful alternate medicine company: https://butterflyexpressions.org/welcome/story

I personally note how the impact of early childhood indoctrination is so long-lasting. In my personal life, after my divorce, my ex-wife took my daughter, refused visitation, and told the daughter that I was evil. By the time my daughter reached adulthood, now almost 50, it was too late to change her mind.

It by Stephen King comes to life.

This is an interesting review: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/millennial-media/201804/psychologists-take-tara-westovers-memoir-educated

Rebuttal by parents’ lawyers: https://www.hjnews.com/preston/news/educated-should-be-read-with-grain-of-salt-says-family/article_0583f217-6fd2-51de-a891-9ca32adb589c.html

For my expanded notes: http://1book42day.blogspot.com/2018/08/dreamers-of-day-by-mary-doria-russell.html

Check out https://amazon.com/shop/influencer-20171115075 for book recommendations. 

It by Stephen King *****

Seven eleven-year-olds take on It, a mind-reading monster (from outer space?) who has been terrorizing the town of Derry for centuries (or longer?). Unsure if they have killed It, they swear to return if It returns. Twenty-seven years later, It returns, and so do they. Prior to the happy ending, there is violence, misogyny, racism, anti-Semitism, bullying, child abuse, and animal abuse. Not for the faint-hearted.

The book has much to say about childhood. Children have more faith and trust than adults. Also, children are often invisible (ignored) to adults.

The book deals with ignoring and forgetting. The town ignores and forgets when the Legion of White Decency burns down The Black Spot, murdering the black soldiers who built and patronized the club. Teachers ignore bullies. The town forgets its history of violence. While It returns every twenty-seven years, the town does not remember from one incident to the next.

The book has a poor view of parents. Some parents beat their children. Other sexually abuse them. Some are more subtle, as the mother who convinces her child that he is sickly, and other parents that ignore their surviving child when another child dies.

The book also has a poor view of the town leaders. The people who rape the forests for personal gain. The police who turn a blind eye to It and the Legion of White Decency.

Almost everyone in the book is isolated, selfish, and psychotic. The notable exception is the Loser Club, the seven children who are good friends to each other.

It often appears as Pennywise, the clown, but also as whatever horror is in the mind of Its target.

It byStephen King. Eleven hundred pages of horror. (If anything triggers you, you have been warned.)

Check out https://amazon.com/shop/influencer-20171115075 for book recommendations. 

The Tale Teller by Anne Hillerman ****

The Tale Teller by Anne Hillerman is book 23 of this series originated by her father Tony Hillerman. Leaphorn investigates a missing biil (dress) from a museum donation. When Leaphorn visits the museum, the lady who opened the donation package mysteriously dies. Bernie is at the flea market when someone discovers a vendor selling their stolen bolo tie. Also, when Bernie is jogging, she discovers a dead body which the FBI is very secretive about.

The book has three protagonists, all Navajo police. (Lieutenant) Joe Leaphorn (retired). In a previous book, he suffered a gunshot to his head and now has difficulty speaking English, though his Navajo is fine. Sergeant Jim (Cheeseburger) Chee is married to Bernadette (Bernie) Manuelito. Chief Manuelito and his wife Juanita are important 19^th-century historical figures and the biil belonged to Juanita.

Another book of Navajo traditions, crafts, and history. The mysteries are intertwined and the reveals surprising.

Check out https://amazon.com/shop/influencer-20171115075 for book recommendations.