John Cotton is the perfect reporter, hearing and seeing it all, but never being noticed until he is caught in a nasty political cover up while searching for a colleague's murderer.

Reunited by a grave robber and a corpse, Navajo Tribal Police Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn is trying to determine the identity of a murder victim, while Officer Jim Chee is arresting Smithsonian conservator Henry Highhawk for ransacking the sacred bones of his ancestors. But with each peeled-back layer, it becomes shockingly clear that these two cases are mysteriously connected--and that others are pursuing Highhawk, with lethal intentions. And the search...