We meet Rita Todacheene as she’s photographing what’s left of Erma Singleton on DB-140, a highway near Albuquerque, New Mexico. Erma’s death, the result of a fall from an overpass into oncoming traffic, is ruled by detective Martin Garcia to be a suicide. But Rita knows this not to be the case. Since she was a child on the Navajo reservation, she’s been able to talk to the dead, and Erma proves to be particularly powerful. Erma promises to turn Rita’s life into hell on earth unless Rita helps her. How can Rita, or the lucky reader who picks up Shutter by Ramona Emerson, say no?
Emerson weaves a page-turning plot with powerful family stories from Rita’s past on the reservation, building up layers of back-story that inform an increasingly complicated crime story in the present. Rita herself is a commanding character, given little sleep, a world full of ghosts, and a demanding but supportive family. Emerson is a Navajo, and a forensic photographer for the Albuquerque PD, experience she expertly mines to give her novel a raw, emotional edge. The prose is precise and immersive, and her layered plot is impressively architected.
In Shutter, Emerson gives her readers two mysteries to solve. Erma’s murder is excellently designed, and readers will alternately get ahead of, then behind Rita as she investigates. Equally mysterious are the rules of Rita’s talent, and the tension it creates on the reservation, as a terror of the dead is a central tenet of Navajo beliefs concerning them. Rita’s journey to embrace – or reject – her talent is every bit as compelling as the solution to Erma’s death, and the plot tangles up quite nicely. There’s every reason believe, to hope that we’ll see a lot of Rita Todacheen seeing the dead, as bodies and spirits.
Ramona Emerson was both down-to-earth and expansive as she and I discussed Shutter. You can hear her by downloading the file from this link. As above, so below.
Narrative Species 