Sacred Bridge
by Hillerman, Anne
pub. by Harper Collins, NY. 2022     isbn - 978-0-06-290836-0 - - 308 pages
This is one of the Leaphorn. Chee and Manuelito mystery series of author, Anne Hillerman.
The Sacred Bridge was written during the time when the COVID virus was raviging the area.
Hillerman wrote in her acknowledgements at the end of the book that it was written from memory of places
as she could not travel to places portrayed in the novel, as she had done for her previous works.
      Both Chee and Manuelito have individual investigations not related to one another.
Chee is on vacation from police work in the far western part of the Navajo area looking for a cave
that may have some religious significance that Leaphorn had seen many years before during the rescue
of some people held by bad guys. The exact location was lost but it was somewhere around Lake Powell,
maybe even at its edge. Chee discovers a body and is asked to assist in the investigation.
One learns a lot about Lake Powell and submerged archeological sites, and due to the fact that the lake is low,
some archeology which is above the water level.
There is a rock formation which looks like a bridge which has sacred significance to the Navajo
      Manuleto witnesses a man purposefully being run over and killed on the highway. He is Chinese.
There is a legal cannabis for medicine growing business on the Navajo reservation.
Although an enterprising Navajo businessman is involved in setting this up the business is being run by a Chinese mobster
and there are some doubts about it being run totally legally. Manuleto is assigned to investigate
by going under cover to work at the business. Things take a bad turn and life gets very dangerous and complicated.
      Chee finishes up his investigation and returns to the Shiprock area just in time
to become involved at the climax of the Manueleto situation.
This mystery takes some time getting things set up in the beginning.
There is a lot of description and set-up at the beginning. It is worth it. The last part of this novel ends with a bang.
It is another good read by Anne Hillerman.
~ 2025-03-24 ~

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