The Spirit Caller (Molly Bearpaw Mysteries)

Of all the many children of Tony Hillerman--Native American investigators walking in the sizeable moccasin-steps of his Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee--Jean Hager's Molly Bearpaw is certainly one of the most interesting and believable. As major crimes investigator for the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, Molly has a one-room office in the lovely university town of Tahlequah in the Ozark foothills, a gun that she keeps locked in the glove compartment of her car, and a part-time assistant, a law student named Natalie Wind. It's Natalie's eccentric aunt, Talia Wind, who gets Molly's latest case started, when the former New Age disciple turned Cherokee medicine woman is found murdered in a haunted jailhouse. It wouldn't be a modern mystery if Molly didn't have a rich personal life, and in this one she's troubled by past and present relationships. Other Bearpaw stories in paperback are Ravenmocker, The Redbird's Cry, and Seven Black Stones.