Ella Clah Books

Black ening Song is the debut of Navajo FBI agent Ella Clah, who returns to the reservation to investigate the murder of her father, a minister. The ritual nature of the killing makes Ella's brother, a medicine man, the prime suspect. Without cooperation from the tribe, the FBI, or the local police, Ella must plumb the depths of the struggle between traditionalist and modernist forces among the Navajo to find her father's murderer.

Returning to the Navajo Reservation and solving her father's murder taught former FBI Agent Ella Clah a great deal about herself and her people, the Dineh. She has begun to accept that that there is more to the world than can be explained by FBI training and forensic science. Newly hired as a Special Investigator with the tribal police, Ella investigates the brutal murders of several of the Dineh's "living treasures," Navajos esteemed for their knowledge of the tribe's religious and cultural wisdom. Illusion and ritual duel with police procedures and science as Ella strives to find out who is destroying the heart of the tribe.

Set on the Navajo reservation packed with Native American wisdom, Aimee and David Thurlo's Ella Clah novels are written with a sharp eye for conflict between the traditionalist and modernist ways of life. Former FBI Agent Ella Clah is now a special investigator with the native police force on the Navajo reservation. Ella's brother Clifford, a Hataali or medicine man, says that her investigative skills are gifts from the spirits who guard and guide the Navajo, but Ella insists it's her FBI training that has honed her instincts. When the daughter of Senator Yellowhair is killed in a suspicious car accident, the Senator accuses Ella and the tribe's medical examiner, Dr. Carolyn Roanhorse, of tampering with evidence and falsifying the autopsy results. An outbreak of meningitis leads to more trouble when many of those who are vaccinated begin dying from an unknown disease. Riots between Indian and White workers at the Navajo-owned mine stretch the resources of the tribal police even thinner. Convinced that solving one mystery means solving them all, Ella plunges into her investigations despite threats from all sides and her suspicions that Navajo witches are somehow involved. Ella Clah has sworn to protect her people from all menaces--spiritual and physical--and she's not going to back off now.

Former FBI agent Ella Clah is now a Special investigator with the native police force. her brother, Clifford, a medicine man, says that her investigative skills are gifts from the spirits who guard and guide the Navajo, but Ella insists it's her training that has her honed her instincts. The Navajo are in turmoil. the tribal police are spread thin throughout the vast reservation, trying to rein in gang violence, murderous drunk drivers, and race riots. Ella's newest assignment is to solve the murder of an old friend's fiancee. Ella is shocked to discover signs of skinwalker activity in the woman's home--was her friend's fiancee a Navajo witch, a hereditary enemy of Ella's family. Ella must solve the murder, do something to stop drinking and driving on the Rez, and keep Navajo teenagers from killing each other, while trying to find and fight her oldest enemies.

With tensions rising between traditional and modern Navajo, a break-in at the health clinic reveals a possible link between the health of pregnant women and the rise in birth defects among native livestock. Reprint.

Navajo Police Special Investigator Ella Clah is on the run. Justine, Ella's cousin and fellow officer, disappeared after the two women argued publicly over Justine's new boyfriend. Human bones are discovered at the spot where the younger woman had told her family she and Ella were to meet late one night. Suddenly Ella Clah, cop, is Ella Clah, murder suspect. Stunned by Justine's death, Ella has no time to mourn. Her former allies in the Navajo Police Department and the FBI are hot on her trail, using techniques she taught them to hunt her down. Ella has to find the real killers--and fast--before the Dineh act on a growing belief that Ella's mother, brother, and young daughter have become evil.

In the Navajo tradition, Changing Woman represents life springing up from nothing. She is the ultimate hope of the world. She is Woman, who embodies all the mysteries of life. Changing Woman Change surrounds Navajo Police Special Investigator Ella Clah. The father of her child seems ready to be more of a father, though it will alter the rhythm of all their lives and may hurt his political career. Ella’s mother, Rose, has rediscovered her passion for politics and struggles to guide her people on the best way to walk in beauty. The Dineh seem to be ready to bring casino gambling to the Rez, despite the risk that the character of the Navajo Nation will be forever altered. Speaking eloquently against the proposal, Rose becomes a national celebrity. Ella has no time to think about how these changes will affect her and her two-year-old daughter. The Navajo Police Force is combating an increasingly violent wave of vandalism, always two steps behind despite their best efforts. Events come to a head with the terrorist takeover of a coal mine and power plant on the Reservation. Ella must keep the terrorists from blowing up the power plant—but how can she focus on being a cop when her daughter is missing?

A stand-alone spin-off from the Ella Clah series, Plant Them Deep features Ella's mother, Rose Destea, in a mystery only a traditionalist Navajo could solve! Medicine men and members of the Plant Watchers society report that sacred healing plants are disappearing from the Rez. In an effort to locate and protect the rare plants, the tribal council asks Rose for help. She faces strong opposition both from healers reluctant to reveal their secret herb-gathering spots and from people who think the Rez should be cultivated with genetically-engineered plants instead of native species. Rose is shocked to discover that many plants appear to have been stolen, perhaps for the lucrative market for alternative and natural medications. Soon after her notes and maps are stolen, a Navajo man is found dead near a gathering site. Rose is convinced that he was murdered by the plant thief. Rose has picked up a trick or two from Ella Clah, her police officer daughter; she begins an independent investigation that soon has her up to her neck in trouble.

Is nuclear power the future for the Navajo? NEED, a consortium of businessmen, plans to open a uranium mine and nuclear power plant on the Navajo Reservation, providing cheap power and jobs. For many Dineh , the NEED project looks like a wonderful opportunity. But many others remember all too clearly the perils of uranium mining and the destructive potential of nuclear power. Councilmember Kevin Tolino hires a bodyguard after receiving threats because of his public support of NEED. A community college teacher is assaulted and his office and home are ransacked-- apparently by the same person who recently murdered a Navajo cop. When a tribal official who opposes NEED is murdered, clues seem to lead to a major supporter of the nuclear project. Investigating the murders and the assault, Navajo Police Special Investigator Ella Clah is perplexed. Why would the wealthy businessmen behind NEED kill their political opponents instead of simply outspending them?

When an arson fire claims the life of the wife of a Navajo Councilmember who spearheaded gun control measures, tensions flare throughout the Rez. Navajo Police Special Investigator Ella Clah's search for the killers is hampered by what happened to her a few days earlier. That day, Ella had acted quickly when an underground explosion triggered the collapse of an abandoned mineshaft. Seeing a child sliding into an exposed tunnel, Ella saved his life but was trapped underground for several frightening, airless minutes. Ella's brother Clifford, a Navajo medicine man, believes that Ella died and that his hataalii abilities showed her wandering wind spirit the way back to her body. Traditionalist Navajo are reluctant to speak to Ella, fearing that she has been contaminated with chindi and become evil. Even some of her fellow police officers are uncomfortable in Ella's presence. Undaunted, Ella continues her quest for justice. But she knows that her experiences underground have changed her permanently. Perhaps she will find a new way to walk in beauty . . . .

FBI agent Andrew Thomas has disappeared after interrupting a Navajo ritual being performed by a group of medicine men or hataaliis . Navajo Police Special Investigator Ella Clah is assigned to the case over the objections of Thomas’s supervisor, who unfavorably recalls Ella’s time with the FBI and believes her to have received special treatment because she is Native American. Determined to find the missing man, Ella studies Thomas’s latest case—a fraud investigation—and finds that evidence is missing or has been tampered with. Clues lead both to the interrupted Sing and to Ella’s old friend, FBI agent Blalock. Ella knows Blalock is incapable of assaulting one of his own men—but that leaves the focus on the hataaliis . The fraud trail leads through a maze of paperwork, banks, government offices, mortuaries, and into the Navajos’ most dearly held-beliefs about death. Only by finding the truth—and fast—will Ella be able to save Andrew Thomas.

What did the dead man know? Jimmy Blacksheep, a Navajo member of the New Mexico National Guard recently returned from Iraq, is killed in what appears to be a carjacking gone wrong. But when Navajo Police Special Investigator Ella Clah receives a mysterious package in the mail, she begins to suspect that Jimmy's death is part of something larger. Ella finds she must use Navajo lore, not FBI cryptography, to decode Jimmy's message. Tantalizing clues link Jimmy's death to his military service―but what could the medic have seen in Iraq that would make him a target for murder back home? Ella's personal life seems just as complicated as her case. Her mother, Rose Destea, marries her long-time beau, Herman Cloud. Then the father of Ella's daughter, Dawn, asks for a change in custody arrangements that will reduce Ella to a weekend mother―a much easier fit with her workload but something that will take a terrible toll on her heart.

Valerie Tso has been murdered, apparently during a break-in, and Navajo Police Special Investigator Ella Clah is determined to find the killer―and fast. Valerie is the estranged mother of Boots, who takes care of Ella's daughter after school. Ella owes Boots a quick resolution to the case. Unfortunately, things aren't as simple as they seem. A Bible verse on a scrap of paper left near the body reminds Ella of a string of murders of Navajo women she worked on in her FBI days. The killer was never found. Now he seems to be killing again, targeting the children of the women he murdered ten years ago. Ella discovers that the earlier victims―and Valerie―had been lovers of Caleb Frank, a successful Navajo businessman. Once a member of Ella's father's congregation, Frank had believed that sinners had to be punished. Could Boots―born out of wedlock―be Caleb Frank's next target? Ella is an unmarried mother―is her own daughter in danger?

Ella Clah is no longer an unsure young woman recently returned to the Navajo Reservation from a stint with the FBI; she has found her place in her tribe, her clan, and her family. She has seen the Diné at their worst―and at their best―as they balance the modern era with the traditional Navajo way of life. Ervin Benally, son-in-law of the powerful Navajo businesswoman and politician Abigail Yellowhair, plans to bring satellite telephone service to the Rez. When Benally is attacked and another man is killed, Yellowhair orders Navajo Police Special Investigator Ella Clah assigned to the case. Ella is determined to find out who is behind the attacks, which include elements of Navajo witchcraft. Coyote's Wife , which introduces a new source of tension in Ella's personal life, will satisfy both the returning reader and those new to this series.

Ella Clah has found her place on the Navajo Reservation, in her tribe, her clan, and her family. She has seen the Diné at their worst--and at their best--as they balance the modern era with the traditional Navajo way of life. The Navajo are building a nuclear power plant on the Reservation. Though the tribe voted for the plant, there are those who believe that nuclear power is inherently dangerous--and particularly so for the Navajo, due to past uranium mining operations that contaminated land and water and sickened many Navajo workers and their families. A group of activists is determined to do whatever is necessary to stop the plant--assault, sabotage, domestic terrorism. When a fellow Navajo Police officer is injured in an attack aimed at Ella's boyfriend, Ella vows to do whatever it takes to find the terrorists and bring them to justice.

When Never-ending-snake begins, Navajo Police Special Investigator Ella Clah is returning from Washington, DC, where she was offered a lucrative job with a private security firm. Taking the job would mean uprooting her daughter, but it might give the young teen opportunities she'd never see on the Reservation. As Ella and her companions deplane, gunfire sends them diving for cover. When the shooting stops, a Navajo war hero has been mortally wounded―but was alternative fuel lobbyist Nelson Lonewolf the intended victim? Or was the gunman aiming for powerful tribal attorney Kevin Tolino? Or for Ella herself? Ella struggles to find the killers while helping the tribe find a way to move forward with the alternative-fuel project and protecting her family―and Kevin, her daughter's father. Never-ending-snake , a tense police procedural, is part of the Ella Clah mystery series.

A construction crew found the first body. The cops found three more, in a cluster that lay on both sides of the border of the Navajo Reservation. Because some of the bodies were buried outside the Rez, Navajo Police Special Investigator Ella Clah and her team must work a delicate joint investigation with the New Mexico police. Identifying the dead isn’t easy—some had been buried for years—and at first the cases look to be nothing but dead ends. Then one of the bodies turns out to be that of a missing man who was believed to have embezzled funds from his construction firm and suspicions focus on the man’s partner. With no obvious links between any of the corpses and the anniversary of their deaths fast approaching, Ella feels frustrated by the investigation’s lack of progress. Unless they can find what connects these victims, someone else may soon be killed. Ella’s ability to concentrate is battered by worries about her teenage daughter, who has been skipping school, and her mother, who is cooking up a storm, a sure sign that trouble is brewing in the household. Black Thunder , an Ella Clah novel, is a police procedural mystery that should appeal to all readers.

Aimee and David Thurlo's newest mystery Ghost Medicine , featuring Navajo Police Special Investigator Ella Clah. Ella takes all her cases personally, but some cases are more personal than others. The murder of Harry Ute is one of those―not only because Ella and Harry dated, years ago, but because Harry was once a member of her investigative team. Ella's team is as close to her as family and a blow against one is a blow against all. Harry's been working for Bruce "Teeny" Little, a local security expert, but despite their long friendship, Teeny won't tell Ella much, just the job involves theft of government property. The dead man was found in an isolated area of the Rez that is reportedly haunted by skinwalkers and the scattered residents are too frightened of the Navajo witches to tell the police much. County cop Dan Nez is also looking into the government thefts. The two detectives―each top dog in their own territory―will have to share jurisdiction, something complicated by their growing attraction to each other. Ella finds evidence that connects Harry's murder to the secret sale of previously unknown Navajo artifacts. If Harry discovered a hidden―and illegal―dig, the artifact smugglers might have killed him to protect their lucrative operation. Identifying the murderer isn't going to be easy. But Harry was one of her own and Ella is determined to bring his killer to justice.