Disclosure / Disclaimer: I received this ebook, free of charge, from Kensington Publishing via #netgalley, for review purposes on this blog. No other compensation, monetary or in kind, has been received or implied for this post. Nor was I told how to post about it. All opinions are my own.
A Navajo Ranger’s chilling and clear-eyed memoir of his investigations into bizarre cases of the paranormal and unexplained in Navajoland
Synopsis:
As a Native American with parents of both Navajo and Cherokee descent, Stanley Milford Jr. grew up in a world where the supernatural was both expected and taboo, where shapeshifters roamed, witchcraft was a thing to be feared, and children were taught not to whistle at night.
In his youth, Milford never went looking for the paranormal, but it always seemed to find him. When he joined the fabled Navajo Rangers—a law enforcement branch of the Navajo Nation who are equal parts police officers, archeological conservationists, and historians—the paranormal became part of his job. Alongside addressing the mundane duties of overseeing the massive 27,000-square-mile reservation, Milford was assigned to utterly bizarre and shockingly frequent cases involving mysterious livestock mutilations, skinwalker and Bigfoot sightings, UFOs, and malicious hauntings.
In The Paranormal Ranger, Milford recounts the stories of these cases from the clinical and deductive perspective of a law enforcement officer. Milford’s Native American worldview and investigative training collide to provide an eerie account of what logic dictates should not be possible.
This is a bit of an odd one- part autobiography, part discussion of Navajo folklore, part discussion of oddities and the paranormal, part talk of UFOS. So if you go into understanding it's not a strict autobiography, then you'll appreciate it more (and understand why I put it under HC this week)! Milford alternates chapters with his personal life and Navajo folklore. This is not only to help you understand his history and why he approaches the episode in the upcoming/previous chapter the way he did, but also to educate on how the Navajo approach to the paranormal is based on their folklore and oral history. If you've had nay type of paranormal experience, then some chapters may resonate more with you, but if not, you will still end up leaving the book asking "what else is out there?". An interesting book for those who study Native history and folklore, but also for those who ask "are we alone"? It would make a great gift for the hard to buy for bookaholic too!
About the Author
Stanley Milford, Jr.,graduated from the United States Indian Police Academy at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Artesia, New Mexico, and worked continuously as a sworn law enforcement officer for over twenty-three years. He served as the delegated Chief Navajo Ranger for over two years through March of 2019. While with the Navajo Rangers, Stan oversaw a section called the Special Projects Unit (SPU), whose responsibilities included the investigation of cases that did not fit within everyday parameters of law enforcement or criminal investigation, many of which involved reports of thenparanormal or supernatural. After leaving the Navajo Rangers, Stan served as the senior investigator for the Navajo Nation’s White Collar Crime Unit.
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