A slant of light

Lasky's latest Georgia O'Keeffe mystery (after Mortal Radiance, 2024) begins with a young Native American boy running through the desert. It soon becomes clear that he has escaped the boarding school of St. Ignatius, and when Georgia takes him in, she learns his sister was killed at the school, one of countless tragedies that has struck there. Meanwhile, Sheriff Ryan McCaffrey is investigating the death of a local bishop who was found hanging, but the medical examiner is sure it was murder. Georgia takes a job teaching at the school to find out if the two cases are connected. They are, and there are also connections to self-mortification devices, antisemitic priest Father Charles Coughlin, and a papal legate. Lasky once again combines real-life figures and events (O'Keeffe, Coughlin, and the abdication of King Edward VIII) into a compelling mystery that culminates in a terrifying showdown during a blizzard. Though A Slant of Light is best enjoyed as part of a series, fans of historical mysteries need not have read the first two to appreciate this one.

Georgia O'Keeffe takes on Nazis and the Catholic Church. In 1936, isolationism is sweeping the U.S., and people like the fanatical priest Father Charles Coughlin are praising the Nazis and spewing hatred. Georgia's settled at the Ghost Ranch in New Mexico, far from her cheating husband, Alfred Stieglitz, and enjoying her relationship with Santa Fe Sheriff Ryan McCaffrey, who's worried about Nazi espionage and Opus Dei, the archconservative offshoot of the Catholic church that's giving his friend Bishop Claudio Peterson sleepless nights. During a painting trip, Georgia discovers Joseph, a frightened boy, hiding in a culvert. She brings him to her home and feeds him. He eventually reveals that he's half Navajo and half Tarahumara, and that he was planning to run all the way to Mexico, but he ends up staying with her for several days and devouring her books. When Georgia goes to Santa Fe to see the bishop about creating a mural, she finds him hanging from a rope in the garden. Was his death suicide or murder? There are indications that he was strangled with a spiked cilice of the type that some church members use on themselves for self-mortification. Upon her return home, Joseph has vanished, leaving behind a note. Going after him, she learns that the priests and nuns who run the St. Ignatius School, where he had been sent by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, killed his sister and physically and sexually abused the children under their care. Georgia takes the opportunity to teach art at the school in order to uncover more murder and abuse. Ryan, who's gone east to learn more about Nazi plots, returns to help Joseph uncover the grave of his sister. Everything comes to a head in a snowstorm that puts everyone in danger before good triumphs over evil. A riveting look at the Indian boarding school system whose horrors continue to be uncovered today. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.