Wall of Smoke

Miguel Alonzo, a Mexican American Navajo Police Officer on the Twin Rivers Reservation, finds himself entangled in a lethal web of ancient cultures and modern legal jurisdictions when he attempts to find the brutal killer(s) of Lodge and Katy Tom. On the cultural level, Fabriano Tom, Lodge's grandfather and a Twin Rivers medicine man, believes that a skin walker-a person with other worldly abilities-has brought "bad blood" to the reservation, resulting in his grandson's death. To find the killer, Grandfather seeks the help of his ancestors in the ceremonial Hogan, invoking the Wall of Smoke. How does Miguel remain sensitive to the people's belief, and at the same time, assist federal, state, tribal, and local agencies in their investigations? Thought provoking and pulse-pounding, Wall of Smoke is deeply insightful of modern structural developments on some Native American reservations and, at the same time, remains highly entertaining.

James Wolf is an Illinois farm boy. The youngest of six children, he was born to a family who struggled through the years of the great Depression. Losing their farm, the family eventually moved to the village of Odell, Illinois, where he attended St Paul Catholic School. Upon graduation he entered St. Ambrose College in Davenport, Iowa. Following a vocation to the Catholic priesthood, he then entered the Major Seminary in Mundelein, Illinois. After 13 years in the priesthood, Wolf left the Diocese of Peoria and moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where in, in 1974, he married Marcella Bachler. They have 3 children. After their marriage they moved to Ramah, New Mexico, where Marcella worked as a social worker in the Zuni Pueblo and James began nearly 3 decades of working for Navajo organizations in the areas of education and community development.