This was my first Ben Pecos novel. Ben is a young psychologist, half native, but not raised on the reservation. He is doing a four year internship in New Mexico to pay back his student loans. His first night at the trading post does not bode well for a peaceful beginning, for a body is found after dinner. The story revolves around a master carver who is making amber and selling it as authentic, his strange landlady who runs the trading post and her mentally and physically challenged son. Ben and his love interest, Julie, try to unravel the threads that bind these three together, hoping to solve the murder before more occur.

An easy, pleasant read, this had enough details of the culture to keep me interested and nice descriptions of the landscape. Ben is not overflowing with personality, but he and the other characters had interest. The end was a bit dulled for me because one of the characters was used to wrap up the story and the "voice" didn't match the quiet, stoic man he was earlier. To tell anymore would be spoilerish, but I felt the author tried a bit too hard to tie up all the ends and became repetitive. ( )