Lost Birds
by Hillerman, Anne
pub. by Harper Collins, NY. 2024     isbn - 978-0-06-334478-5 - - 291 pages
This is one of the Leaphorn. Chee and Manuelito mystery series of author, Anne Hillerman.
Chapter heads are graced with a sketch of a hummingbird in flight.

The Lost Birds is a story of a series of mysteries - with one murder.
Both Leaphorn and Largo are retired in this book.
Leaphorn is taking on work as a private investigater and Largo is more recently retired.
Both still have strong links in the Navajo police community.
Leaphorn has a case involving discovering the birth parent identity of an adult
who was adopted out probably form Navajo parents and wants to reconnect
to a Navajo heritage that is foreign to the parents who adopted her. Records are few and not in order.
He also gets a call from another person he helped many years earler & needs Leaphorns help to locate his missing wife.
These 2 investigations form the background for most of this book.
Both Bernie Manueleto and Jim Chee are featured.
There are also family matters.
Louisa, Leaphorns close friend gets a call from her estranged adult son and there is great unhappiness.
Bernies mother and sister feature in the back story and add richness to the lives of the community.
There is an explosion which destroys a new room in a school on the Navajo reservation.
Bernie does a fair amount of the human detailed investigation in the school explosion.
Some extra training that she had about investigating explosions comes in handy.
The investigation of that event involves 3 different police organizations, Navajo police, County Sheriff and FBI which cooperate as they must.
Most, but not all of these situations become intertwined, but are reasonably resolved at the end.
Chapter 31 is a well crafted epiligue which more firlmly ties all the strands together, even those which are unrelated to the main mystery.

This book has minimal carry over from the immediately previous books.
If you read it alone without having read the previous book it will still make sense.
A very good read, as are all of the books that the Hillermans (both Anne and her father Tony) have written.
~ 2025-05-22 ~

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