Embeddings of critical graphs near the Heawood bound

Complementing a theorem of \v{S}krekovski, we characterize the $(h-1)$-critical graphs embeddable in surfaces of Euler genus at least $5$, where $h$ denotes the Heawood number of the surface. Outside of a few small cases, the bulk of our proof is determining the genus of the join of a complete graph and the 5-cycle. As a byproduct of our proof, we also provide a simpler solution to the minimum triangulations problem for nonorientable surfaces using the theory of current graphs.