An Incidental Death in Monterey (The Mission Murders)

Father Juan Ibarra is a Franciscan friar in California. He also happens to be a physician. He has been sent to the territory to bring some relief to the native Californians, who are suffering terribly under the imposed rule of the Spanish Empire, particularly from introduced disease. Father Juan is asked to perform a routine autopsy on a young Indian woman. To his dismay he discovers that she was murdered. As he and Major Eduardo Carrillo, the commander of the Monterey Presidio, investigate the death it develops that the young woman was an unwilling concubine to the governor of California. Further, she had recently been threatened by the governor’s wife. It turns out sexual infidelity is not the governor's only failing. He has been dealing under the table with the captain of an American ship in the harbor, and the dead woman served as a courier in financial dealings between the governor and the Americans, all to the detriment of the King. An Incidental Death in Monterey follows Father Ibarra’s investigation from an accidental drowning to a murder to a murder with the governor as the prime suspect. Ultimately, it becomes a case of discovering, too late to prevent another tragedy, exactly what took place.