Exposure

by Ramona Emerson

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

Creepy and disquieting, this paranormal thriller will keep you looking over your shoulder for ghosts lurking in the shadows.

In the follow-up to the National Book Award–longlisted Shutter, Navajo forensic photographer Rita Todacheene grapples with a fanatical serial killer—and the ghosts he leaves behind.

A dual-voice cat-and-mouse thriller, told from the points of view of a killer who has created his own deadly religion and the only person who can stop him, an embattled young detective who sees the ghosts of his Native victims.

In Gallup, New Mexico, where violent crime is five times the national average, a serial killer is operating unchecked, his targets indigent Native people whose murders are easily disguised as death by exposure on the frigid winter streets. He slips unnoticed through town, hidden in plain sight by his unassuming nature, while the voices in his head guide him toward a terrifying vision of glory. As the Gallup detectives struggle to put the pieces together, they consider calling in a controversial specialist to help.

Rita Todacheene, Albuquerque PD forensic photographer, is at a crisis point in her career. Her colleagues are watching her with suspicion after the recent revelation that she can see the ghosts of murder victims. Her unmanageable caseload is further complicated by the fact that half the department has blacklisted her for ratting out a corrupt fellow cop. And back home in Tohatchi on the Navajo reservation, Rita’s grandma is getting older. Maybe it’s time for her to leave policework behind entirely—if only the ghosts will let her . . .

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781641294768
Publisher:	Soho Press, Incorporated
Publication date:	10/01/2024
Series:	A Rita Todacheene Novel , #2
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	19,354
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Ramona Emerson is a Diné writer and filmmaker originally from Tohatchi, New Mexico. Her debut novel, Shutter, was longlisted for the National Book Award and the Bram Stoker Award, nominated for the Edgar for Best First Novel, a finalist for the PEN America Open Book Award, the PEN/Hemingway Award, and the Macavity, Barry, and Anthony Awards for Best First Novel, and winner of the Lefty Award for Best First Novel. She has a bachelor’s in Media Arts from the University of New Mexico and an MFA in Creative Writing from the Institute of American Indian Arts. She resides in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where she and her husband, the producer Kelly Byars, run their production company Reel Indian Pictures.

Read an Excerpt

Chapter 1
Gunpowder Girl
Nikon D2X • f/16, 1/8 sec., ISO 200)

The little girl’s breath smelled of blood and gunpowder.
     I’ve heard it said that children’s souls ascend into the heavens without the tethers of recollection and the pull of longing that their mothers carry—the connection to their bodies and their blood and their memory. But sometimes they must stay behind—their little voices must tell us their stories. The grief is just too much to carry.
     It was 3:15 in the morning when her cold hand squeezed mine. My apartment had gone so bitter cold that I could hear cracking glass coming from my window ledges. I pulled my blankets closer, my gaze traveling toward the darkness in the corner. Her eyes were bright and framed by darkened bruises. I stared at her as the moon fell on our faces. I had no idea who she was, but she pulled on me, my stretched skin stinging as she drew me toward her.
     “We’re waiting for you,” she said.
     I became aware of the six other sets of eyes standing in the shadow, of the sound of their breathing like a collective wheeze, the liquid in their throats. I felt a sickness deep in my stomach—the pain of grief. There were so many of them, wheezing until their hearts went quiet. Time stopped as we stared at each other, fifteen minutes of their whispers on my skin. Our confrontation was interrupted by the sound of my phone ringing, the light bouncing on the nightstand. My heart was racing. I answered and the ringing stopped. “Hello.”
     The black eyes were gone and the room had begun to warm.
     “Hello, Rita. We need you up on the west side.” Samuels sounded strange. “Our specialist . . .” He paused long enough for me to check the blue reflecting light of my phone’s screen. We were still connected. “Our new specialist can’t continue.”
     “I still haven’t been cleared with Dr. Cassler.” I looked at the clock. It was now almost 3:30 a.m.
     “We need you down here.” There was a long and distant silence.
     “Send me the address.” I hung up the phone and looked around the darkness of my room. Even though the girl and her shadows were gone, I couldn’t shake her or the smell of her breath. As I stood in my bathroom, water dripping from my face, I could smell smoke, gunpowder and the stench of burning hair, like it was billowing from my walls. I dressed, pulling my leg brace up over my thigh, the sharp sting of pain rolling down to my ankle. It did this every day. I told no one. It would be one more thing they would be able to talk about, another whisper around the water cooler. I would tell no one about my visitors this morning either.
 
7310 Platero Road NW, 4:14 a.m.
There were eight units already at the scene, mostly police vehicles and two quiet ambulances. Officers had the property taped off all the way through the end of the block as early risers stretched their necks over their fence lines. The air was still cold as I readied myself to begin another morning in my paper suit.
     It had been an hour since the original 911 call. The report stated that a James Sandoval, pastor at First Desert Light Church, was on his way to the crime scene with the suspected perpetrator in the back of his vehicle. The suspect was a teenager, a Jude Montaño, the oldest son of Steven Montaño, a retired Albuquerque PD detective. Jude had come to the church in the middle of the night still holding a gun, blood splatter on his face. When Pastor Sandoval approached him, he raised the gun to the pastor’s face and pulled the trigger. Luckily, there were no bullets in the gun. Pastor Sandoval called the police and drove with Jude straight to the boy’s house, where they found every single member of his family dead from gunshot wounds—three girls, aged three, seven and fourteen; three boys, five, eight and ten; and both parents, Steven and Elizabeth Montaño, both forty-three.
     Jude Montaño sat in the backseat of the patrol car, staring at me through the window as I pulled up. His back shook with every breath and tears rolled down his cheeks. He stopped crying when he saw my arm rise. I was pulled toward the house like a pendulum. I wondered if he could see her too.
     The little hand pulled harder as I walked toward the crime scene. I looked down to see her bruises, the gunpowder freckles on her cheeks, the hole in her face like a honeysuckle bloom. Her mouth was bloody and swirled with white that leaked from both sides of her lips.
     “I knew you would come,” she said. “Can you play with us?”
     All the dead children were outside on the playscape in their pajamas, cavernous wounds in their backs and heads. I watched them chase one another up and down the slides while the oldest stared at the people passing in and out of their doorway. She turned her eyes on me, her expression one of anger—of finality. I think she was the only one who wasn’t confused about what happened.
     The little girl never left me as I stepped onto the crime scene. Her siblings ran up and surrounded us, their voices unaware—a strange echo still giddy with childhood. The smallest one cried, raising her hands to me, wanting me to pick her up.
     “Come play with us.” A boy pointed to their yard, scattered with dolls and toys.
     I looked toward the door where the techs were assembling. A few officers stared at me, as they often do. I pulled away from the children.
     “Rita, over here.” Samuels stood by a man with a graying beard. Sandoval, the pastor. The air was cold, the sun still behind the mountains.
     “Rita Todacheene, photo specialist.” I extended my hand, and Pastor Sandoval took it, never saying a word.
     Samuels motioned to the responding officer, the first on scene, a senior investigator named Louis Giovanni, to join us. He was already making his report, checking the temperature, and calculating the times. He read out what he had already taken down as I loaded my camera. Giovanni was brand-new to APD after four years in Minneapolis and another five in Los Angeles. He had come to Albuquerque to replace Sergeant Seivers, who had finally retired and moved to California to be with her grandbabies. I liked Giovanni because he was committed, and he wore horn-rimmed glasses—there was a mad scientist buried in him somewhere. He was very tall, quiet and reserved, but always seemed to know what questions to ask on scene and how to leave no stone unturned. That was how Seivers used to be. They had found someone who was almost her equal. Giovanni wasn’t privy to my special radar. Samuels still considered it compromising to cases. He never talked to me about it as long as I kept going to the shrink.
     “Pastor Sandoval says the kid walked into the church and stood there silent, gun in hand. He knew right away something was wrong and drove them straight over here,” Giovanni concluded.
     “Did you go inside, Pastor?” I asked Sandoval.
     “Yes,” he answered after a hesitation. “But once I saw Steve, I came right back out. He was a friend of mine.”
     I ducked beneath the tape, two cameras at my side. I could see our new specialist sitting in the ambulance, her hands over her face. My leg muscles pinched and burned as I coughed the smell of old blood off the back of my throat and started to take pictures. I backtracked from the scene, framing the front of the house, the number by the door, the blood-sprayed porch. Photo one, marker one. I photographed everything in the yard, the toys and bicycles, the new vehicles and construction equipment. From this viewpoint, nothing looked out of the ordinary. I pulled my notebook from my bag and diagrammed the scene as I saw it, lines and circles marking bodies and distance. Then I moved into the house.
     At marker three, a man lay on the floor near the doorway, his face an explosion of blood and bone. I looked up to the ceiling of the porch, right above where Giovanni, Samuels and Pastor Sandoval stood talking. Pieces of brain tissue, skull fragments and flesh sprayed the columns, some nestled in the white macramé yarn planter, others embedded in the peeling paint and wood slats. The tissue smelled already, the earthy, milky smell of brain mixed with sharp iron.
     After framing the blood and tissue from the porch in my lens, I moved to the man in the doorway. He looked up at the ceiling as if his face was still there, some memory loading before he died. Whatever gun had made this wound was powerful. Judging from the spray on the porch and doorframe, he was shot as he entered, surprised by his fate. A spattered recliner faced the door, its arms and back dotted with blood. I took twenty-seven photos of the man—the father, a former detective, a husband—his surroundings and his wounds. Blood pooled behind his head, a ten-inch-diameter circle embedded in the tan carpet with a wide river of blood trailing toward the door, small streams branching into the fabric. The bullet had hit him right at the upper bridge of his nose, knocking his eyes out of their sockets and pouring them into the sides of his hairline. On his right hand, there was a hole —a jagged tear between his middle and index fingers, bruising on the knuckles and fingers and deep cuts on his palm. There was a distinctive blackening of his hands and another hole indicating where he raised his arm for cover. The bullet had cut right through to his skull. A 9mm gun lay by his right side, the television lights flickering on its silver skin. The man’s ghost never came. When I photographed the wounds on his hands, I could smell gunpowder. Photo count eighty-seven.
     I counted three rifle casings behind the couch, a .30 caliber ammo that was more suited to hunting animals. At this range, the man had no chance. The recoil of the gun could have caused the bruise on the boy’s face. We spotted two more holes above the front door and at the edge of the ceiling. Most likely the other two rounds had been fired inadvertently, a product of the boy’s inexperience with the gun’s power. I could hear the kids outside laughing. The oldest girl was watching me through the open door, the baby tugging at her nightgown.

Editorial Reviews

08/05/2024

Emerson’s riveting second paranormal thriller featuring Rita Todacheene (after Shutter) finds the Navajo forensic photographer laying low following the traumatic events of the previous novel. Long viewed with suspicion because of her ability to see ghosts, Rita has become a pariah among her law enforcement colleagues after exposing corruption in the department. Her medical leave ends early when she’s called to a gruesome crime scene where teenager Jude Montaño—the eldest son of a retired Albuquerque detective—appears to have killed his entire family. At the scene, the ghosts of Jude’s young siblings appear to Rita. One of them leads her to evidence suggesting that their father was sexually abusing them, and that Jude is innocent. Unable to toe the thin blue line of silence, Rita resigns and returns to her family on the reservation near Gallup, N.Mex. Her peace is short-lived, however, as the ghosts of indigent Native people who died at the hands of a clergy-affiliated serial killer begin to haunt her, and she’s forced to launch an under-the-radar investigation that she suspects could connect to the Montaño case. Visceral prose (a young ghost’s breath “smelled of blood and gunpowder”) elevates Emerson’s impressive blend of crime fiction and supernatural horror. This series deserves a long life. Agent: Nancy Stauffer, Nancy Stauffer Assoc. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

Praise for Exposure

A Barnes & Noble Best Mystery & Thriller Book of 2024
A LibraryReads Top Pick of the Month
Apple Books Best Books of the Month

“The prose style seems even more visceral and sharpened, and Rita, with her visions of the dead and her righteous need to find justice for the marginalized, remains an indelible protagonist . . . Exposure confirms Emerson's talents.”
—The New York Times Book Review

“Emerson takes us into the dark better than most storytellers, but she never once forgets that we need to reemerge.”
—E.A. Aymar, The Washington Post

“Hauntingly mysterious.”
—Ms. Magazine

“Ramona Emerson’s Exposure, her second novel about police photographer Rita Todacheene, takes another leap forward, weaving in poignant looks at Navajo culture, crimes against Native Americans, mysticism, family ties and mental health issues.”
—South Florida Sun Sentinel

“In addition to it being an enthralling story I love that this contemporary mystery combining police procedure, photo technology, and a bit of the paranormal with a complex protagonist was written by a woman who is, herself, Diné and was actually a police photographer in Albuquerque.”
—Colorado Sun

“Hard to put down.”
—The Free Lance-Star

“Compulsive and addictive.”
—LitReactor

“Exposure is intense, gripping, moving, and so gorgeously written. I often stopped to reread certain passages purely for the elegance of her language, descriptions of scalded beauty. A stunner!”
—Mona Susan Power, author of A Council of Dolls

“Tightly paced, with evocative description and a strong sense of voice, this is a novel you won’t be able to put down until the final word.”

—Electric Literature

“From the very first page, Exposure is equally—if not more—electrifying than the first, allowing both fans and newcomers to jump right in . . . Emerson, a Diné writer and filmmaker who hails from Rita’s own hometown of Tohatchi in the Navajo Nation, masterfully commands these tightly wound plot strands, varying the tension and pacing with comforting moments with Rita’s beloved elderly neighbor, Mrs. Santillanes . . . Rita Todacheene is a gritty, believable character with a heart that is equal parts steel and soul. Readers will immediately be clamoring for more.”
—BookPage, Starred Review

“Ramona Emerson so effectively describes the starkly beautiful country and the uncompromising weather, which is a formidable antagonist in the plot, that you may need a hot cup of something as you read. She integrates the Native American traditions and beliefs into the modern tale in a way that gives science (the medical examiner), belief (the Navajo) and procedure (the police) their due – all three coming together in Rita. They are not always easily reconciled, and her struggles make for a unique and compelling story.”
—Crime Fiction Lover

“Riveting . . . Visceral prose elevates Emerson’s impressive blend of crime fiction and supernatural horror. This series deserves a long life.”
—Publishers Weekly

“For fans of forensic leads, dark mysteries, dual POV (including the killers), and ghosts! . . . You can start here and not feel lost, but if you’d like to start at the beginning of this great series, pick up Shutter.”
—Book Riot

“A compelling, interlocked portrait of two troubled souls.”
—Kirkus Reviews

Praise for Shutter

A Barnes & Noble Monthly Pick
Longlisted for the 2022 National Book Award
Finalist for the 2023 PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel
Finalist for the 2023 PEN Open Book Award
Finalist for the 2022 Edgar Award for Best First Novel
Finalist for the Anthony Award for Best First Novel
Winner of the 2022 Lefty Award for Best Debut Mystery Novel
Nominated for the Macavity Award for Best First Mystery Novel
Nominated for the 2022 Strand Magazine Critics Award for Best Debut
Nominated for the Barry Award for Best Debut Mystery or Crime Novel
The Boston Globe Best Books of the Year
An NPR Best Book of the Year
A New York Public Library Best Book of the Year
CrimeReads Best Horror Novels of the Year
A South Florida Sun-Sentinel Best Mystery Books of the Year
An Orange County Register Best Mystery Books of the Year
Outside Magazine 10 Best Books of the Year
Book & Film Globe Best Books of the Year
An ABA Indie Next Selection
An ABA Indie Next Gift Guide Selection
An ABA Summer 2023 Indie Next List for Reading Groups
A PLA LibraryReads Selection
A CrimeReads Most Anticipated Crime Book of Summer

“A perfect blend of thriller, horror, and coming-of-age story.”
—The Boston Globe

“Haunting.”
—The New York Times Book Review

“This story is way more than a thriller, more than a ghost story. It is one of family and history, of culture, of past and present, of walking set boundaries and of discovering oneself.”
—USA Today

“This paranormal police procedural is unusual and multilayered, but what stands out is the gorgeously expressive and propulsive first-person storytelling, which is split between Rita’s present and her past. A former forensic photographer herself, the pictures Emerson paints with words are as vivid as they are brutal.”
—Oprah Daily

“Shutter is utterly unputdownable. It is a haunting thriller, written with exquisite suspense, and filled to the brim with beautiful writing, through the lens of cameras and memory—an ode to photography, written across the landscapes of the Navajo Nation and cityscapes of New Mexico, about what it means to witness and capture death, be captured by it, told unflinchingly by an author who knows what she is doing on every page. It is fun, and funny, and chilling. This is a story that won’t let you go long after you finish, and you won’t want it to end even as you can’t stop reading to find out how it does.”
—Tommy Orange, author of There There

“A unique perspective on New Mexico and native culture.”
—New Mexico PBS

“Shutter defies easy genre classification . . . Yes, this is a mystery with elements of horror, but the novel also plumbs Rita’s relationship with her grandmother, who raised her on the Navajo reservation hours from the city where she now works. The result, featuring one of the best first chapters I’ve ever read (admittedly, not for the faint of heart), leaves us with so much more than phantasmagoric thrills.”
—Book & Film Globe

“This mystery-crime-thriller is beautifully and chillingly rendered.”
—Ms. Magazine

“Emerson touches upon subjects that Diné often are reluctant to raise or discuss in intimate circles, and does so in ways that allows for conversation about death, the possibilities of a spirit world, gifts of second sight, and witchery and evil . . . Yet, we must acknowledge and work through because it is reality, it is more so a coming-of-age story.”
—Jennifer Nez Denetdale, Navajo Times

“Emerson immediately establishes herself as a new talent with her engrossing debut Shutter, which combines a story of Navajo culture, coming of age, mysticism, family ties and crime detection . . . Emerson is definitely an author to watch.”
—South Florida Sun-Sentinel

“The thriller read of the summer—Dark Winds meets The Sixth Sense.”
—Indian Country Today

“Gritty.”
—Outside Magazine

“Emerson creates a powerful tension between Rita’s photographic documentation of dead bodies at crime scenes and the spiritual desperation of their souls . . . The title of the novel captures photography’s fluidity, at once referring to the blink of a cold, mechanical eye and suggesting the near homonym, shudder, the visceral chill when in the presence of the supernatural.”
—Ploughshares

“[Emerson] navigates family and crime to create a captivating mystery and page-turner.”
—The Bulletin (Bend, OR)

“Get ready for the next wave of Indigenous thrillers! Shutter is a soulful and mesmerizing exploration of the paranormal, set against the backdrop of New Mexico and the Navajo Nation. Written in tough, edgy prose, this book grabs you by the shoulders and refuses to let you leave. Ramona Emerson is a welcome new voice in Native literature.”  
—David Heska Wanbli Weiden, author of Winter Counts

“Beautiful, imaginative prose with a sharp edge. Shutter is a powerful and supernatural debut. I've never seen a better rendering of gifts and power. This work understands the spirit world and how it does not relent until we bear witness. Ramona Emerson is a badass, propulsive, exacting and true storyteller.”
—Terese Mailhot, author of Heart Berries

“This debut, spellbinding, gritty and beautiful, laced with body parts, hauntings, humor, residential school trauma and a lot of bloody noses, is, in the end, the story of a young girl who fell in love with a camera, and followed that camera into a life. Layered, depth-plumbing, radically suspenseful, deeply felt, Shutter moves between making your blood run cold and warming your heart, so quickly, smoothly and stealthily you won’t know what hit you.”
—Pam Houston, author of Deep Creek: Finding Hope in the High Country

“In her thrilling debut, Shutter, Ramona Emerson allows us a glance into not just one world, but many. Bridging the divide between a grounded procedural mystery and a paranormal thriller, this novel is a feast for fans of both genres and brings us a protagonist we’ll want to visit again and again.”
—Stuart Neville, author of The Ghosts of Belfast

“The mysterious, the paranormal, and the historical come together in Ramona Emerson’s riveting debut . . . Emerson’s powerful new voice brings a breath of fresh air to the crime fiction genre.”
—Cowboys & Indians

“Chilling.”
—Arizona Daily Star

From the Publisher

07/12/2024

Photographer and crime scene specialist Rita Todacheene is back at work after being shot in the first book in Emerson's series (Shutter). Readers may well wonder why she has returned to work so soon, without being cleared by a psychiatrist, when the first crime scene she works overwhelms her and pits her against the rest of the police department, yet again. Rita, a young Diné woman, wants to leave the corrupt Albuquerque Police Department behind, but the anger of the ghosts surrounding her hinders her journey. Much of this book is taken up with Rita learning to believe and defend herself from the ghosts, but her journey is unclear and fleeting. It neither propels the plot nor develops her character. The other half of the book is the harsh first-person narrative of the villain, a religious man with mental illness. Unfortunately, his story is more developed, more interesting, and better written. Returning secondary characters are either absent for large portions or flat with no real personality, and the new players feel forced and detached. VERDICT Lacking in clarity and plot, this is a disappointing sequel.—Catherine Field

Library Journal

2024-08-03
A pair of antagonists with eerily complementary vocations square off against each other.

Rita Todacheene, a Navajo photo specialist for the Albuquerque crime lab, not only sees dead people but hears them too, and they have plenty to say. Margarita Montaño, one of six children shot to death along with their parents, tells Rita that even though her surviving brother, Jude, has been in police custody ever since he walked into the First Desert Light Church with an empty revolver, he didn’t murder his family: “It was Daddy.” But although Steven Montaño left behind photographic evidence that he abused all three of his daughters, he was a retired Albuquerque PD detective, and the blue wall closes around him. Since no one credits Rita’s secondhand testimony—which, granted, does sound a little far-fetched—and the cops insist that she keep her ideas to herself, she quits her job, leaving herself unmoored and adrift. In the meantime, Brother Gabriel Jensen, who’s moved by an equally strong passion to help the street people of nearby Gallup by setting them free of their mortal coils, graduates to murdering former Gallup mayor Emmitt Gurley, whose ghost threatens Rita with serious harm if she doesn’t bring his killer, whom he declines to identify, to justice. The high-profile deaths that follow lead Det. Arviso to ask Rita for help. Rita, who can’t turn down another Navajo, takes up the gauntlet, setting the stage for a final battle with an adversary who also hears voices and acts on them even more decisively than she does.

Less a mystery than a compelling, interlocked portrait of two troubled souls.

Kirkus Reviews