The Quality of Mercy

Starred review from July 24, 2017
Tony Hillerman fans will welcome Medhat’s excellent debut and series launch, a refreshing take on Navajo country’s crime, culture, and history. After the discovery of a man’s body carefully laid out near Chimney Rock, white policeman Franz Kafka (aka K), who has settled in fictional Milagro, San Matteo County (“one of the few places left in the Western hemisphere—and possibly the Eastern too—where his name rings no bells”), teams with Robbie Begay, a tracker with the Redwater Navajo Tribal Police. At the crime scene, Begay makes a number of impressive deductions from shoe and tire marks. Dental records identify the victim as 28-year-old Noah George, a member of a Navajo family known for its bad luck. As they investigate Noah’s troubled past, Begay and K swap stories, insights, and insults that brilliantly illuminate the daily obstacles that Native Americans encounter. Medhat, who holds a Ph.D. in medical anthropology, uses pathos and humor, tragedy and comedy, to spin an entertaining and original mystery.