The mother of Ella Clah, an investigator with the Navajo Police, and Clifford Destea, a traditional healer, Rose Destea is asked by the tribal council to investigate reports that sacred healing plants are disappearing from the reservation.

"Returning to the Navajo Reservation after receiving an offer for a lucrative new position in Washington, D.C., Ella Clah anticipates a cheerful family welcome at the tiny airstrip. What she gets is a firefight--three men in body armor, guns blazing, shooting at anyone who moves. Tribal attorney Kevin Tolino, war hero Nelson Lonewolf, the plane's pilot, and Ella herself duck for cover amid the hail of bullets. Tolino and Lonewolf are seriously injured"--Page...

Once an FBI agent, Ella Clah is now a Special Investigator with the Navajo Police. She walks a tightrope between the Najavo and the white worlds, fully accepted by neither but needed by both. Ella's brother, Clifford, a hataali or medicine man, says that her investigave skills are a gift from the spirits who guard and guide the Dineh, but Ella insists it's her FBI training that has honed her instincts.

Is nuclear power the future for the Navajo? NEED, a consortium of businessmen, plans to open a uranium mine and nuclear power plant on the Navajo Reservation, providing cheap power and jobs. For many Dineh, the NEED project looks like a wonderful opportunity. But many others remember all too clearly the perils of uranium mining and the destructive potential of nuclear power. Councilmember Kevin Tolino hires a bodyguard after receiving threats because...

"A construction crew found the first body. The cops found three more, in a cluster that lay on both sides of the border of the Navajo Reservation. Because some of the bodies were buried outside the Rez, Navajo Police Special Investigator Ella Clah and her team must work a delicate joint investigation with the New Mexico police. Identifying the dead isn't easy--some had been buried for years--and at first the cases look to be nothing but dead ends....