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Chapter Overview
Chapter 1: AudiobookHub Recommendation
Chapter 2: — Gunshots in Níłch’itsoh
Chapter 3: — A Birth on the Shoulder
Chapter 4: — The Missing Husband Next Door
Chapter 5: — Evidence That Vanishes
Chapter 6: — The Dead Husband and the First Big Lie
Chapter 7: — Chap’s House, A Body, A Missing Scientist
Chapter 8: — The Ranger’s Betrayal
Chapter 9: — The Cave, The Gun, The Word ‘Right’
Chapter 10: — The Blizzard Showdown
Chapter 11: — The Bear’s Lesson
Description
The Way of the Bear follows Navajo Nation Police officer Bernadette “Bernie” Manuelito and her husband, Lieutenant Jim Chee, as a restorative trip to Bears Ears National Monument turns into an escalating investigation. After gunshots echo through Valley of the Gods and a truck appears to deliberately hunt Bernie in the night, she finds signs of hidden excavation and desecrated petroglyphs—an offense that carries both cultural and ominous spiritual weight.
As Bernie and Chee try to involve federal land managers and the sheriff’s office, their questions collide with a second mystery: a missing paleontologist, a dead man found in the cold, and a private fossil enterprise that seems willing to terrorize locals to protect a secret. With a major storm closing in, the case becomes a race against time, forcing Bernie and Chee to confront corruption, greed, and the cost of truth in a landscape revered as a place of healing.
Who Should Listen
- Fans of modern Southwestern crime fiction who enjoy investigations anchored in place, culture, and ethical stakes.
- Readers of the Leaphorn/Chee/Manuelito series looking for a high-consequence case centered on Bernie and Chee’s marriage and choices.
- Listeners who like mysteries where land, history, and competing claims (public resources, tribal sovereignty, science, profit) drive motive.