People of Darkness

People of Darkness is a novel written by Tony Hillerman. The novel is about unexplained killings that are happening in a Navajo Tribe, in which the killings go back a decade; the Navajo Tribe believe that these killings are due to witchcraft. The novel begins when a Navajo Tribe police man by the name Jim Chee was given an assignment to investigate a murder that happened outside his jurisdiction. Jim Chee falls in love with a white young woman during his investigation and causes him to have problems with his people because of his culture. He also finds people that have connections to the murder, but they are being killed and also people of high authority are demanding that the investigation stops.

The novel becomes more exciting when Jim Chee finds very mysterious millionaire, a sinister, peyote-eating Indian cult having connections to the murder. He uses everything in his power to disentangle from the dangerous web he got himself in. He becomes very puzzled as to why these high authority white men are so persistent in stopping the investigation.

The novel becomes creepy as Jim Chee discovers that there is more going on besides killings. The method used to kill these people is by poison, the novel explains the process of the slowest-acting poison when it takes effect on people. This novel is a great book to read because it has mystery and it describes the different cultures involved in the novel, and yet the cultures are very similar.