Ronald A. (rarendt) reviewed on 5/14/2012 + 107 more book reviews

I have read all the Tony Hillerman books published prior to this one, and must say there's a law of diminishing returns at work here. I loved his books when I first started reading them, and after the first ten or so I still really liked them, but I only just barely liked the last two. He seems to have run out of things to say, and spends more and more time going on about Navajo spirituality, and less and less time giving his readers an entetaining read with an interesting plot. In this one, I had the mystery solved in the first half of the book, but had to plod through the rest of it just to see how he was going to work it out. Won't spoil the ending for you by going into detail, but Joe Leaphorn's actions toward the end of the book were uncharacteristic. Hillerman mentions often that Leaphorn is retired, and often just tired. I felt like the author's personal feelings were bleeding through into his main character. Looking at his picture on the back cover reminded me that Tiony Hillerman is a WW2 veteran, and has a right to be a little tired himself - and his prose is startinjg to show it.

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