The Darkness Rolling

Set just after WWII, this fine first in a new series from the husband-wife writing team of Win (Stone Song) and Meredith Blevins (The Red Hot Empress) introduces half-Navajo, half-Jewish Yazzie Goldman. Having been released from his wartime stateside duties, Yazzie is ready to return to Arizona and deal with his grandfather’s recent stroke and the shambles his trading post home has become in his long absence. But along the way, he runs across acquaintance John Ford (yes, that John Ford), who happens to be directing a film in the desert and hires Yazzie as a bodyguard for his beautiful, free-spirited leading lady. Naturally, she and Yazzie become involved. Danger arrives in the form of a mysterious man seeking payback for long-ago wrongs he blames on Yazzie’s family. This artful, intelligent novel includes casual bits of Hollywood name-dropping (Yazzie’s grandfather went fishing with John Wayne while the star was on a shoot) plus wonderfully lyrical, almost musical passages about the land and Navajo myths. [em]Agent: Bob Diforio, D4EO Literary Agency. (June) [/em]