A Way to the Manger

Christmas time in New Mexico is filled with tradition - both Tewa Pueblo and Christian. But this Christmas there's a dark foreboding when star basketball player Charlene Toya goes missing. In A Way to the Manger by Susan Slater, psychologist Ben Pecos has some unusual help in his search for Charlene.

Charlene is the star basketball player on the high school team with a goal of getting a full scholarship to the University of New Mexico, but something is standing in her way. She is eight months pregnant and has managed to hide this from everyone.

After the game Charlene heads to a building she hopes will have someone to help her with her pregnancy. Not an abortion, but with the adoption of the baby. She slips a note into the letter box asking someone to call her on a pay phone in the recreational center the next day.  As she turns to walk away, a woman answers the door and encourages her to come into the agency.

When the woman discovers Charlene is Native American, she tells her the child is shielded by law from adoption outside the reservation. With a sinking heart, Charlene flees to her truck and into a dangerous situation.

After Charlene has been missing for several days, Ben enlists the assistance of several members of the pueblo to find her. No one believes Charlene ran away, she had too much going for her. Most feel something terrible has happened to her. 

And something terrible has happened to Charlene but she uses her strength and resolve to find a way out of her situation.  An unlikely hero is Lorenzo Loretto, 96-year-old village hero.

A Way to the Manger is a Christmas novella in the Ben Pecos Mystery series. I look forward to getting to know Ben Pecos and the Tewa Pueblo better in the other books.