Turquoise Girl
Aimee & David Thurlo
Forge, Apr 2007, $23.95
ISBN: 076531715X

Navaho Police Special Investigator Ella Clah feels down because her mother moved into her new husband's home while her place is being renovated and her daughter is staying with her father. She also has to live with her partner Justine and her roommate until the repairs are completed. Her professional life heats up when Ella prevents a riot from igniting as protestors try to halt construction of a nuclear plant. She notices a stranger wearing sunglasses on the site.

An anonymous call leads Ella to the home of Valerie Tso, who was tortured with her body garbed in church clothing while she was "baptized" in the bathtub with a note from the bible nearby. Besides the gruesome crime scene, the homicide further disturbs Ella who is not sure why until she remembers she worked a similar case while working as as an FBI agent in California. She quickly links her current case to two other women dying in a similar horrific way with their children executed. Ella finds a link involving her father's church years ago that also means she and her family are in jeopardy from an unknown adversary with a religious grudge.

Aimee and David Thurlo have written some of the best contemporary Native American police procedurals on the market in recent years as readers over the course of the Clah series investigations obtain a taste of the Navaho culture while also being entertained. TURQUOISE GIRL lives up to those expectations with a strong whodunit and a look at the debate between the traditionalists and the modernization groups. Ella is at her best as her inquiries lead her moving deftly between the two opposing sectors when her case suddenly turns personal.

Harriet Klausner