At Ease with the Dead - Walter Satterthwait

A Santa Fe PI's search for stolen Native American bones unearths dark deeds and a fresh murder in a gripping mystery "reminiscent of Tony Hillerman" (Booklist).

Private investigator Joshua Croft never expected to see Daniel Begay again after he helped the elderly Native American fend off a group of abusive rednecks. But now the old man has come to Croft's Santa Fe office with a bizarre request: He wants the detective to recover human bones that have been missing since 1925.

The skeleton of Ganado, a Navajo warrior, was stolen decades earlier by Dennis Lessing, who found them while he was searching for oil on sacred Native American land. Less than a month later, Lessing was killed, and Ganado's bones have not been seen since.

What at first seems like a relatively harmless-if hopeless-pursuit grows graver by the hour, as Croft's search takes him from the halls of an El Paso university to the hard lands of the Navajo Reservation. But when his digging into the past starts to uncover other skeletons besides Ganado's, Croft may be the next one to fall victim to someone desperate enough to kill to keep secrets buried.