Mystery of the highest order, if you'll pardon the pun, occurs when a skeleton is discovered 1,700 feet above the base of a sacred mountain in an Indian reservation that stretches across New Mexico and Arizona. Joe Leaphorn, the detective who comes out of retirement to investigate the case, doesn't believe an Indian would climb the sacred mountain, let alone kill on it. But if someone is ruthless enough to kill, would they not be uncaring enough to do so anywhere? Perhaps, but there's issues of mining rights, land claims and money to muddle the picture in this mystery of the wide-open West.
Human bones lie on a ledge under the peak of Ship Rock mountain, the remains of a murder victim undisturbed for more than a decade. Three hundred miles across the Navajo reservation, a harmless old canyon guide is felled by a sniper's bullet. Joe Leaphorn, recently retired from the Navajo Tribal Police, believes the shooter and the skeleton are somehow connected and recalls a chilling puzzle he was previously unable to solve. But Acting Lieutenant Jim Chee is too busy to take an interest in a dusty cold case ... until the reborn violence of it hits much too close to home.
