Song of the Lion

The last thing one might expect to find in the Shiprock High School parking lot on the Navajo Reservation is a bomb in a car. In Song of the Lion by Anne Hillerman, Navajo Police Officer Bernadette Manuelito is off duty and enjoying an Alumni basketball game when the building shakes. The sound she soon realizes is coming from the parking lot.

She rushes outside to find a car in flames and twisted metal all around. Managing to keep everyone inside the building while she waits for reinforcements to arrive, Bernie wonders if it was a bomb. When a seriously injured young man is found adjacent to the car, Bernie fears there might be another bomb in the gym.

The owner of the BMW turns out to be Aza Palmer, a lawyer. He the mediator at the large meeting to determine whether a huge resort on Navajo land at the edge of the Grand Canyon should be built. He's positive someone is out to kill him.

Jim Chee, Bernie's husband, is assigned as a bodyguard for Palmer while the mediating meetings are

going on in Tuba City. There are a wide range of groups at the meeting - some pro, some con. Most believe Palmer is not going to be a fair mediator. There are acts of sabotage at the Navajo Justic Building where the meeting is being held. First the electricity goes out throughout the building, then someone tampers with the heating system. 

When the dead man is identified as Richard Horseman, the name rings a bell with Lt. Joe Leaphorn. Aza Palmer also remembers him as a young man he knew as a child. As more is learned about young Horseman, Aza's son Robert and two businessmen involved in the development come under suspicion.

Song of a Lion beautifully loops Bernie, Jim and Lt Leaphorn together in true Hillerman form. When I met Anne Hillerman, I commented on how much her books have the voice of her late father, Tony Hillerman. She laughed and said she heard his voice all her life! Naturally she can continue his series in the same voice.

I look forward to more in this series, especially as Bernadette Manuelito is front and center in the books.