8. At Ease With the Dead - Walter Satterthwaite

Joshua Croft #2
University of New Mexico Press, 1990
paper $9.95
237 pgs.
Rating: 5

A very fine mystery, taking place in Santa Fe, NM; El Paso, TX, and Navajo country, Arizona and New Mexico. Joshua Croft is a private investigator who functioned without cellphones or the internet, since the book was written over 20 years ago. Really well crafted, an interesting suspenseful tale.

Joshua Craft and Rita Mondragon run the Mondragon Investigation Agency together, although Joshua does all the "legwork." Rita's in a wheel chair and never....ever....leaves her house on the side of a mountain overlooking Santa Fe. The story begins with Joshua Meeting a wise old Navajo man named Daniel Begay while camping and fishing in northeastern New Mexico. They bond. And awhile later, Begay comes to him with a 65-year old mystery that is almost all dead ends, since almost everyone that could answer any questions is either dead or in their 80's. But Joshua proceeds, meeting fascinating people in El Paso and seeing first hand the trepidation that Navajos have for non-Navajos.

There's fighting and killing, with a little detail that's uncomfortable, but not enough to stop me from giving this a top-notch rating. I didn't read the first in the series, but I've ordered the second and can't wait to receive it.