Prayer of the Dragon by Eliot Pattison

Shan Tao Yun makes for a very unusual detective, as a discredited member of Beijing's police, sentenced to serve time in a Tibetan prison, but given a reprieve in a previous book to help solve a local murder.  Now he has been sent to a small village high in the Tibetan mountains to investigate a series of murders.  Of course nothing seems quite right from the start.  The two murder victims are part of a local research team from the U.S. who are attempting to establish links between the ancient religions of Tibet and the American Navajo, of which two of the research party are members. Pattison paints a vivid picture of this unique setting, and there are many plot twists to keep the story moving.  357 pages.