As he does in the earlier Talking God (1989), Hillerman uses an ethical question as the starting point for Coyote Waits, a compelling mystery set in Navajo Country. Once again he raises the issue of the conflict between the demands of academic research and the restrictions and taboos of ethnic cultures. In this novel, Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee are back in the familiar territory of the Southwest. However, their investigations carry them beyond reservation boundaries and into the academic community of a major state university, away from the carefully structured modes of behavior among the dineh. The cut-throat world of scholarly research is populated by those who will stop at nothing—even murder—in order to garner information that might lead to an important article or a book.

As the mystery unravels, it becomes clear that Ashie Pinto, the elderly man accused of the...