Finding Moon's protagonist, Malcolm "Moon" Mathias, is, like Jim Chee, Hillerman's Navajo cop, a gloomy, conflicted character. Now the managing editor of a third-rate newspaper, the Morning PressRegister of Durance, Colorado, Moon realizes that his life is a mess. He rents a room in his house to the twenty-something, voluptuous Debbie, who sometimes sleeps with him when she's not out with other men. In the office, he has to oversee Rooney, a reporter with a propensity for getting drunk when Moon needs him the most. His boss, Shakeshaft, views the paper only as a source of revenue and threatens to fire Moon over any disagreements.

A sense of failure permeates Moon's personality. He believes that he has failed everyone close to him, and he assumes that his attempt to find his niece in Cambodia will end in failure. He constantly looks for a reason to give up the...