Bad Medicine

The search for bigger and better bugs pushes this uneven Hot Zone clone into supernatural territory. Set in northern Arizona, the novel follows the efforts of two Native American medicos--part-Choctaw physician Push Foster and Navajo Health and Human Services official Sonny Brokeshoulder--to arrest the spread of ""Navajo flu,"" a virulent respiratory inflection that targets reservation dwellers and kills in hours. Although their biological investigation throws the men together (giving them plenty of time to banter and learn Hopi and Navajo lore from their patients), by the end of the novel it hasn't contributed much to their understanding of the epidemic, which, according to Hopi Elder Clifford Lomaquaptewa, is caused by witchcraft, ""the most heinous of all Navajo crimes."" Querry (The Death of Bernadette Lefthand) can't seem to make up his mind whether the Navajo history, mythology and spiritual beliefs included in his novel are the real story or window dressing for the buddy tale of Foster and Brokeshoulder. Small wonder that, at the novel's end, his heroes and readers are equally baffled by the mysterious Navajo flu. (Apr.)