In the parking lot of the Cancer Disease and Treatment Center of the University of New Mexico a pickup truck is bombed to smithereens. This is a murder attempt on a man who had just checked himself into the center dying of cancer. Why would anyone want to kill a man already dying?

A month later, Navajo Tribal policeman Jim Chee is summoned to the palatial home of millionaire DJ Vine. A strongbox belonging to Vine was stolen. Mrs. Vine offers Chee $3000 to find and return the box which supposedly only contains her husband's mementoes of his past. She believes the box was stolen by Emerson Charles, the Navajo head of the underground religious society called the People of Darkness. The Church was founded in the 1940s. Each of its founders has succumbed to a mysterious ailment. The Church's cult was using peyote. Now another member of the Church is found murdered.

Reviews of other titles in this series

Skinwalkers #1 (Tony Hillerman)
Dance of the Dead #2 (Tony Hillerman)
People of Darkness #4 (Tony Hillerman)
Thief in Time #8 (Tony Hillerman)
Skeleton Man #17 (Tony Hillerman)
The Shape Shifter #18 (Tony Hillerman)
Rock with Wings (#1 Anne Hillerman)
Song of the Lion (#3 Anne Hillerman)