I really enjoyed this Edgar nominee for fist novel. The details about Navajo culture and the crime scene photographer job took what might have been a basic ‘ “I see dead people” story and elevated it a bit. Can’t wait to see what the author does in the future ( )

I loved the Native American viewpoint of this story, and the characters were fun and interesting! The storyline was something different, and grabbed my attention. I thoroughly enjoyed reading Shutter! ( )

The story follows a Navajo police photographer almost literally to hell and back. Rita Todacheene sees dead people. Since most of her attempts to talk to someone about her special power while she was growing up on the reservation ended in disaster, she has tried to keep it to herself during her five years with the Albuquerque Police Department. Her hard-earned peace is shattered by the death of Erma Singleton, the manager of a bar owned by Matias Romero, her common-law husband. Although Detective Martin Garcia, who is less than ambitious, has decided to call the case closed and has gone on record saying that Erma death was from she fell from a highway bridge, and her body was struck by the truck that hit her on the roadway below. Erma, however, oh yes, she quite vocal even though she is also quiet dead... insists that she was pushed from the bridge. She previously had asked Rita to help me "get back to my baby". She emphasizes that request by telling Rita. "If you don't help me, I’ll make your life a living hell.” Since Rita is a civilian employee, she has few resources for starting or conducting any type of investigation. It seems that Erma, even dead, is not without some strange powers....and she opens a portal that unleashes scores of ghosts, all clamoring for justice or mercy or a few words with their loved ones they left behind. The nightmare then propels Rita forward, with things like her taking photos of Judge Harrison Winters and his family and their dog, who then are all shot and killed in what Detective Garcia calls a murder-suicide. Then something unexplained shows up that links these deaths along with Erma’s, to the drug business of the Sinaloa cartel. All this is interwoven with repeated flashbacks that shows Rita’s early years on her Navajo reservation and in her Catholic grade school as she struggles to come to terms with this "gift" that she never asked for or wanted that feels more and more like a curse. I found the character of Rita, and her Navajo background, as well as her being a forensic photographer for the Albuquerque police department, fascinating as well as educational. Her unique talent helped to make this story exciting and almost believable.... but who can say? What I did find a bit confusing was telling the story in the present time in one chapter, and the past in the next one. I really liked the idea of giving each chapter a title that referenced a particular camera, or camera setting, and even something to do with a computer was a good touch. Overall...I really enjoyed this novel. ( )

I wish the author had told a different story, than she did.
This is the authors first book and she can definitely write well, and clearly knows about photography.
The problem was there are two different storylines told in alternating chapters, and while the one about Rita growing up and living with her grandmother was really good, the story of a series of murders and how the ghosts of the victims haunt the main character- Rita, was idiotic.
Crime writing is definitely not something she should continue writing, at least based on this book. ( )

There were things I really liked about this -- the life of a forensic photographer is compelling, horrifying, exhausting. Rita's backstory growing up on the Navaho reservation is interesting and complicated. Her voice is great.

I'm not sure I would read a second if this turns into a series -- the gore level is high, the visuals are disturbing, and Rita just seems so passive in her own life. It makes sense, with the way the story is told, and she certainly seems to be getting a handle on that as the book progresses, but it's got a core of tragedy that makes the book heavy going at times. ( )