1925. Las Cruces, New Mexico. The investigation into the murders of three tribal councillors has stagnated amid accusations of racial prejudice. When newspaper publisher Bessie de la Paz requests advice to jumpstart the investigation, former Baker Street Irregular Ben Irwin arrives to assist in tracking down the killer. The two team up with the investigating deputy sheriff to uncover new clues as Bess’s health declines toward a diagnosis of cancer. The investigation culminates in a fourth death that leads to the killer but undermines the trust Bess has placed in those once closest to her as she now must rely increasingly on Ben for far more than friendship.
1925. Las Cruces, New Mexico. The investigation into the murders of three tribal councillors has stagnated amid accusations of racial prejudice. When newspaper publisher Bessie de la Paz requests advice to jumpstart the investigation, former Baker Street Irregular Ben Irwin arrives to assist in tracking down the killer. The two team up with the investigating deputy sheriff to uncover new clues as Bess’s health declines toward a diagnosis of cancer. The investigation culminates in a fourth death that leads to the killer but undermines the trust Bess has placed in those once closest to her as she now must rely increasingly on Ben for far more than friendship.
She closed her eyes.
A late March breeze sighed through the trees and shifted wisps of stark black hair around her face. Underneath the whisper, the Rio Grande pressed against its banks, slicing through the desert toward Texas and the Gulf of Mexico. Micaela relished this time of day, late afternoon fading gently into evening. Earlier, strong winds had deposited a thin layer of desert dust on the riverside woods, now an extra cushion of quiet as light faded.
The girl tilted her head slightly, sorting the few faint sounds dissipating on the breeze. Feathers rustled, a bird squawked, and… Her brow wrinkled, eyes narrowed.
There.
Footsteps, distant, becoming nearly indiscernible as they faded within the thickening dark.
Elena?she wondered, but no. How could the crazy one have double-backed from the road so quickly to wander into the woods toward the river without being seen? She’d been muttering angrily to herself when Micaela passed her, but not clearly enough to discern the words. Micaela moved to the opposite edge of the dirt road to put distance between her and the woman as they passed. The girl had once asked her to whom she was constantly talking.
Elena grinned. “You’ll see. One day.” She clucked and hissed, “If you open your eyes.”
Ever since, Micaela had avoided her as completely as possible.
The faint footsteps continued to fade through the woodland debris behind the meeting hall—too many steps for only one person. She heard a voice, clearly a man’s, snap in an angry, hushed tone. She grimaced, unable to recognize it or quite make out the words. A few more footsteps, and then only the sound of the wind and river remained.
Micaela opened her eyes, her gaze drawn to the meeting hall’s roof. A burrowing owl perched slightly back from the roofline above the entrance. She’d seen such birds several times before, unmistakable silhouettes gliding through the woods from tree to tree, but never one up close and never during daylight hours, for which she was grateful. Bad things could follow a daytime sighting. The elders said so. The owl ruffled and stretched its wings.
Micaela drew a deep breath and dropped her gaze to the building’s entrance, noting the odd silence within. The last time she’d fetched her grandfather, she’d heard the council members debating with local farmers. The outsiders accused her grandfather of being a fool for not leasing farmland to them. Tonight, only a harsh, unsettling quiet greeted her.
She felt clammy in the day’s dissolving heat. Sand stuck to her bare feet with each deliberate step toward the entrance. A train whistle wailed in the far distance. The breeze stirred again, tinged with a growing chill. The temperature would drop a good twenty-five degrees overnight only to rise quickly again tomorrow with the sun. Then winds would pick up, and dust would fill the air. Such was spring.
The owl pivoted its head as a desert cardinal swooped down to the low-pitched roof’s ridge behind it. It began to squawk fitfully. The owl faced forward once again as though intentionally ignoring the cardinal, apparently unimpressed by its cacophony. The cardinal hopped further down the ridge from the owl but maintained its fitful protest.
Candlelight spilled through the entrance, the door slightly ajar, casting a faint, flickering glow on the path. Micaela wondered why the door wasn’t fully open as usual to provide ventilation to the windowless building.
The owl lifted its wings, crouched slightly, and rose into the air, vanishing into the growing dark. The cardinal fell silent. The breeze surged. Micaela, a small, thin silhouette in the dim light, stepped up to the entrance and pushed the door slowly open.
She looked first to the simple wooden table to her right where Grandfather Cayetano, the tribal community’s cacique, sat slumped forward in his chair, head on the tabletop, arms dangling below. To her left, directly across the room from Cayetano, his assistant, Manuel Cantor, sagged to one side in a simple wooden chair, right arm dangling, the left lying across his lap, the front of his shirt dark and wet, his head lolled to the left, eyes open and staring. Directly in front of her at the back of the room, Micaela’s cousin, Alejandro, lay face-down on the floor in a thick puddle of congealing blood.
Micaela’s eyes darted between the men before she drew a deep and trembling breath and nodded, as if obeying an internal command. She moved quietly to the cacique and cupped a quavering hand gently against the back of his neck the way she’d seen older women place their hands upon the foreheads and chests of the deceased. Her mother, Fermina, had explained that the gesture was one of several actions to help a person’s spirit transition into the afterlife. She closed her eyes in the manner she’d seen the older women do, and her lips began to move silently with prayers her mother had taught her. With another nod, she opened her eyes and backed slowly away, momentarily unsure which of the other two men she should go to first, finally choosing Manuel and then Alejandro, placing her hand on Manuel’s forehead and the back of Alejandro’s neck, her touch steadier as she accepted the situation, her lips moving with the same silent prayers for each.
She stood and paused momentarily beside Alejandro, her thoughts settling enough to sort through what she saw but unable to conclude anything except that someone had murdered the men. She backed to the middle of the room. She lowered herself gently to the floor, folding her legs loosely under her as she faced Alejandro, with Manuel on her left, Cayetano on her right, the entrance a few feet behind her. She recalled the footsteps she’d heard earlier, and her mind filled with possibility and trepidation. She twisted around to peer through the open doorway, but saw nothing in the darkness beyond the faint candlelight. She faced forward once again and closed her eyes. Her lips began to move again in silent prayer.
The floor behind her creaked.
She twisted abruptly onto her knees and hands and felt immediate relief to find her mother in the doorway. Fermina Roybal—a mature, sturdy version of the girl, with silky, gray-streaked hair that cascaded over her shoulders and down her thin, rugged body—steadied herself with a hand on the doorframe, face slack, lips parted, her gaze scanning the room slowly in disbelief, lingering momentarily on each body, finally settling on Micaela. She hurried to the girl and knelt to hug her before holding her at arm’s length.
“You okay?” she whispered.
The girl nodded.
“What happened?”
Micaela shook her head, discerning both fear and relief in her mother’s eyes.
Fermina whispered, “Did you see anyone?”
“Just Elena.”
“Here?”
“On the road.”
“Anyone here?”
Micaela shook her head.
Fermina drew a deep breath. “You’ve said prayers?”
The girl nodded.
“Let’s finish. Then we’ll call the sheriff.” Fermina stood and went to each of the men as Micaela had. She carefully turned Cayetano’s head to one side, his body shifting slightly, threatening to topple out of the chair. She licked the middle and forefinger of one hand, which she held briefly under the man’s nostrils before placing her palm as best she could on his forehead. Sighing unsteadily, she straightened and stared down at the man for several long moments. She whispered something Micaela could not hear before turning away as she wiped her eyes clear. She proceeded to the other two men to check for breathing and administer prayers before returning to her daughter. Candlelight flickered in the woman’s tearful eyes as she sat on the floor beside Micaela.
“Who would…?” the girl began.
“I don’t know,” Fermina whispered, her face slack with sorrow.
“I did what I thought you’d want…”
“You did right,” Fermina said. She side-hugged the girl and kissed her forehead. “You’ve done exactly as you should.” She drew a shaky breath and straightened. “We need to finish and call the sheriff.” She glanced over at her father, Cayetano.
Micaela followed her mother’s gaze but refused to focus on the body as she returned to silent prayer. Candlelight danced and flickered as the wicks withered within their tiny flames. From the roof came the scraping and tapping of birds’ feet.
Her mother took one of Micaela’s hands into her own and whispered, “It’ll be all right. I promise.”
Micaela quietly held her mother’s gaze for the briefest moment. She understood.
Her mother lied.
The trembling hand of a girl on her grandfather’s neck, desert wind that lifts the fatigue of a reporter rocking in a chair, a foreigner who steps into into an unfamiliar world. Those are the subtle cues that lift Bonnie Lynne Del Aguila and C.S. Fuqua's novel from a Sherlock Holmes knockoff into an intense addition to the Baker Street canon. Fans of the world's first consulting detective will be surprised.
The subtitle, A Baker Street Irregulars Mystery, the main title, The Crosses, and my failure to read the author's preview prepared me to dive into the dark passages of 19th century London. Instead the tale envelopes readers in the culture and spirit of Las Cruces, New Mexico and the nearby Chihuahuan desert in the 20th century's first decade. The novel’s first chapter makes the strongest argument that a mystery can honor ritual, grief, and cultural specificity without the loss of narrative momentum.
"Footsteps, distant, becoming nearly indiscernible as they faded within the thickening dark," hints at Watson's prose and Holmesian atmosphere popular with fans. Yet, in The Crosses, former Pinkerton Bessie de la Paz is not a Watson surrogate, yet match enough for Benjamin Irwin, the visiting Baker Street Irregular. “She felt clammy in the day’s dissolving heat… Candlelight spilled through the entrance.”
From the opening, the novel establishes the collision between Indigenous communal life and the encroaching pressures of outsiders who misunderstand, exploit, or dismiss it. The murders of three men is not merely a puzzle. The savagery is a rupture in a cultural fabric already stretched thin.
Bessie, shaped by Southwestern frontier labor, tribal ties, and Pinkerton pragmatism helps readers to grasp the region, people and history. She probes more out of moral obligation for justice than curiosity. The victims and the community deserve more than bureaucratic shrugs.
Irwin, an intelligent, rumpled, dislocated Brit - a fish out of water that shows readers "the bowl," clarifies the culture and geography. Their partnership gives the investigation strength and shows how mystery operates in a physical, mental and spiritual landscape where silence is a cultural practice and survival strategy.
The Crosses succeeds because it honors Holmes and Southwestern mystery traditions. Readers will enjoy the deductive rigor of Holmes storytelling and the emotional, communal stakes of Southwestern fiction. It understands that truth is not merely uncovered — it is negotiated, witnessed, and sometimes carried like a burden.