title: Artifacts of Death: A Murder Mystery in Utah's Canyon Country
author:  Rich Curtin 
description: "Artifacts of Death is a riveting read of desert drama and mystery, very much recommended." -- The Midwest Book Review<br /><br />"In the first of the Manny Rivera Mystery series, a collection of rare, valuable Native American pottery leads to deceit and murder...following along with the deputy is utterly absorbing and gratifying...Perceptive storytelling energized by an admirable protagonist and refined prose. Curtin's descriptions of arid Moab are poetic." --Kirkus Reviews<br /><br />Author Rich Curtin's soft-spoken crime-solver Manny Rivera stands tall in the world of detective fiction. Rivera is smart, honest and skilled at taking a hodgepodge of clues and suspects and figuring out who did it and why. As a bonus, Rivera does his work in some of America's most beautiful country, the sculpted red rocks near Moab, Utah, and the empty landscape beyond.<br />I love this series.<br />---Anne Hillerman, author of the New York Times bestseller "Spider Woman's Daughter," a Jim Chee-Joe Leaphorn mystery
zlib_text: ARTIFACTS OF DEATH
  
  A Murder Mystery in Utah ’ s Canyon Country
  
  R ich C urtin
  
    
  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and events are products
  of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be
  construed as real. Any resemblance to actual incidents, locales,
  organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
  
  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used, reproduced, or
  transmitted in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author,
  except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and
  reviews.
  
  Copyright (C) 2010, 2016 Rich Curtin
  
  All rights reserved.
  
  ISBN: 1453890858
  
  ISBN-13: 9781453890851
  
  Library of Congress Control Number: 2010915606
  
  Printed in the United States of America
  
    
  Dedicated to the Memory of
  
  Tony Hillerman
  
    
  PROLOGUE
  
  Southeast Utah
  
  September 4 th 1938
  
  LIAM SLOWLY PUSHED aside a branch of the juniper tree that concealed him and
  peered down Burro Canyon in the dire