The Broken Kachina

A man falls off the cliff path at Bandelier National Monument in New Mexico, tumbles to the bottom of the canyon, suffers some bumps and bruises and a sprained ankle. He, Tom Blackbear, a dealer in Native Art and Crafts, claims to have stumbled over his own feet. However, a photo taken by photo-journalist Karl Wagner at the moment of his 'stumble' reveals that he was pushed off the cliff side. This leads him and his journalist colleague Manuela Hernandez to investigate this incedent and other incidents involving other 'accident-prone' art dealers. With the help of friends and family members layer after layer of the mysterious goings-on are peeled away. Despite the help from, amongst others, Manuela's cousins, chief of the Santa Fe police Henry Cardenas and lieutenant Joe Benally of the Navajo Tribal police and some of his scalp-happy braves, Karl and Manny get seriously hurt, almost killed, in an ambush by trigger-happy banditos. That does not suppress the humor, including Karl's 'disgustingly Danish sense of so-called humor', and many insults are exchanged by the everyday normal characters in this intricate affair, before they uncover all the twisted tentacles of a multilayered criminal conspiracy, including strong-arm sales techniquers leading to murder, money-laundering and coyote traffic.