Solving her father's murder taught FBI agent Ella Clah a great deal about herself and her people, the Dineh, or Navajo. She isn't sure she believes everything she experienced while tracking down the Navajo witches who killed her father, but she now knows that there is more to the world than can be explained by her FBI training and forensic science. Now a special investigator with the tribal police on the Navajo Reservation, Ella is stunned when one of the Dineh's "living treasures" - people who hold and teach the cultural and religious wisdom of the tribe - is brutally murdered. Ritual signs at the murder scene seem to point to skinwalkers, or Navajo witches, but Ella thought they'd all been killed or captured. Ella has too many suspects and too few clues, even after other old wise ones are found dead. Despite help from the Navajo pathologist, Carolyn Roanhorse, a woman as much an outsider within the tribe as Ella herself, Ella makes little progress. To make matters worse, Peterson Yazzie, head of the skinwalkers, has escaped, and once again stalks the Clah family. Illusion and ritual duel with police procedures and science as Ella strives to find out who is stealing the mind and heart of the Navajo people. YA. Ella Clah, a special investigator with the tribal police on the Navajo Reservation, is determined to find the serial killer who is methodically murdering Dineh (Navajo) cultural leaders. Faced with staff shortages, threats to her own family, and the illogic of the psychopathic killer, Clah draws on her experience as an FBI agent and her intuition to solve the increasingly horrific crimes. A strong, intelligent woman, Clah devotes her life to protecting the Dineh, one of the central themes of the story. She provides an eyewitness account of the routines of police work, emphasizing the daily grind of law enforcement as well as finding clues to the murders. Constant attention is paid to the changes in terrain and weather. Characters develop into unique individuals with talents, strengths, weaknesses, and idiosyncrasies. Even minor characters take on individuality through in-depth and detailed descriptions, which add significantly to the continuity of the story. YAs, especially those looking for strong females in contemporary settings, will find Clah and her assistant and cousin, Justine Goodluck, appealing examples. A fast-paced, intriguing novel.?Pam Johnson, Fairfax County Public Library, VA Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. Someone seems to be mounting a full frontal assault on the elders and sages on Ella Clah's Navajo reservation. The most striking piece of physical evidence in old Kee Dodge's murder, a carefully planted cat's bone, implicates the skinwalker magicians who bedeviled Ella's first case (Blackening Song, 1995); the second victim, Leonard Haske, is linked to the hataalii, the Singers of sacred wisdom. But long before the third murder, Ella's convinced she's dealing with a single obsessive killer she dubs the Packrat for the souvenirs he removes from his victims. Despite the obvious leads--a married man involved with Kee's daughter, and a claim of responsibility by Peterson Yazzie, the sergeant who preceded her in the tribal police before he went around the bend and was immured in the Hilltop Psychiatric Institute--she searches tirelessly for the links among the victims and their executioner. That's a lot of thankless searching, because the list of suspects is as vast as it is nondescript. Even Peterson Yazzie, whose predilection for deadly mind games makes him easily the most compelling figure here, is no Hannibal Lecter; once he's escaped and begun his campaign of terror, you may find you've forgotten about him in the underbrush of all those other subplots. Busy, ambitious, and dense, but without the kinds of dramatic and psychological contouring that would make it all memorable. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.