โ Scribed by Tony Hillerman
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
"They sat for a while, engulfed by sunlight, cool air and silence. A raven planed down from the rim, circled around a cottonwood, landed on a Russian olive across the canyon floor and perched, waiting for them to die."
Nobody in the world could have written that paragraph but Tony Hillerman. Two old men sit, surrounded by the natural beauty of Canyon de Chelly, talking about death. The fact that one of the men is Joe Leaphorn, (the Legendary Lieutenant, as his younger colleague Jim Chee irreverently but accurately calls him behind his back) means that something serious has happened--a crime in some way connected to the Navajo people. But Leaphorn has retired from the Navajo Tribal Police, and the only person dead so far is a rich Anglo named Hal Breedlove, who fell while trying to climb Ship Rock 11 years before. Chee is busy on another, more prosaic matter, but he can't resist helping his thorny mentor on Leaphorn's first case as a private detective. The Fallen Man is brisk, beautiful, funny, and poignant--as good a place as any for first-timers to plunge into Hillerman Country. Then they can catch up on past triumphs with
YA. The latest Jim Chee and Joe Leaphorn mystery has vivid descriptions of Native American mythology and traditions but lacks the suspense and tightly woven plot of the earlier titles in this popular series. A skeleton is found on a high ledge of Ship Rock mountain, a place sacred to the Navahos. Tribal Police Lieutenant Chee and the now retired Leaphorn suspect correctly that it belongs to a wealthy rancher missing for 11 years, and Chee tries to discover if it is murder or an accidental death. Meanwhile, Leaphorn is hired by a lawyer to look into the investigation for the rancher's Eastern family, who want to own his land legally so they can accept a lucrative bid for the mining rights. The obvious suspects, if there was foul play, are the young woman who inherited the ranch and her brother who manages it. In addition to uncovering the cause of death, Chee must determine if the rancher died before or after his 30th birthday when he legally inherited the ranch from a family trust. The continuing rocky romance between Chee and tribal lawyer Janet Pete brings an interesting love angle to the story. Environmentalism and the survival of Native American culture are strong themes.?Penny Stevens, formerly at Fairfax County Public Library, VA
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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