Dark Winds

I finished Listening Woman, which is the third book in the Leaphorn/Chee series. This one features Leaphorn.

I've read #1, #3, and #4. And I think Listening Woman (the third) is the best so far. Granted, Hillerman does like to escalate his violence as a plot element. But that is fairly typical.

Was he able to bring these disparate plot elements together into an ending? Well, it was okay and better than I thought it would be.

I kept thinking there was a Hardy Boys element to this story. There's a big dog. A mysterious cave. Dynamite. And that's not a bad thing. The plot was pretty much non-existent in the first book and was cliché-ridden in the fourth. But this one was a decent pulp-fiction type of plot.

I'm canceling my AMC+ subscription because I've looked and looked and can't find anything else I want to watch. But I did stumble upon Spy City. The production values aren't the best, but through two episodes, it's kept my attention. I should be able to finish this one out before my subscription expires in early December. Synopsis:



One reviewer snarkily asks:



Oh, he's not that bad of an actor. But, yes, he has big hair. It looks like the kind of plastic hair you can snap on and off a Ken doll.

I finished the series, Spy City, which you can find on AMC+. It actually was okay.

But be forewarned: If you have been a spy or know about spying, it's almost laughable at times how amateurish these guys are (on all sides, French, English, American, Russian). I don't think they bothered to have any kind of technical consultant. They just winged it.

By aside from that, for a spy flick, it was okay. I agree that the main character isn't the greatest actor in the world. But he is surrounded by a decent enough cast so that this doesn't really become an issue. I need Artler to see this because, even after seeing the end, I've got questions about the main plot element of this.

The series is set in Berlin in 1960 and 61...just before the Berlin Wall went up. Someone called this series "unconvincing, but stylish." Yeah, it is sorta that. Don't ask for people to act in mostly rational ways and you'll be fine. I was laughing through one of the final scenes where Fielding Scott and his cat-burglar assistant break into the spy archives building in the dead of night. There is ample light in order to see where they are going...and yet one of the idiots is waving around a rather bright flashlight. I've never been to spy school, but I'm pretty sure that stealth when burglarizing the spy archives is the norm.

I finished The Dark Wind, #5 in the Leaphorn and Chee series. It flowed fairly smoothly, and ended sort of abruptly. But the ending was by no means bad. I just expected a wrap-up chapter or something past where it did end.

The basic structure is built around a drug drop-off in the desert that goes wrong. There are some peripheral plot points that may or may not intersect with this main one. And if you watched the HBO series, it's not a spoiler to say that there is a dirty DEA agent involved. From what I remember, this is the one element that was plucked from this book and inserted into the menagerie of plot elements that made up the series.

After 4 books and the series, am I starting to think like a Navajo? Am I starting to appreciate their culture? Honestly, not really, although I don't despise their culture. It sort of is what it is. They are sort of the Freman in the desert of their own Dune-like world. They are a bit odd and eccentric and their culture probably wouldn't work well anywhere else.

Although the writing style of Hillerman is by no means top-notch, it's certainly competent and serviceable. And he saves us (and his idiot daughter apparently does not who continues the series after his death) from any "woke" elements. In fact, it's refreshing to have a short description on how, to Chee, it is so bloody obvious that a Navajo and Hopi look completely different. But then Chee reminded himself that back in his college days, his girlfriend reminded him that even after years he could not distinguish a Swede from a Jew from an Italian, etc. So Chee admits that it's not necessarily a racist thing for whites to say that Indians "all look alike" because to the Indians, the whites do all look alike.

The online library didn't have book 6. In fact, the next book available is #11, Sacred Clowns. I've checked it out and will give it a try.

I wouldn't say that I find all that much that is quotable in the Hillerman novels. But this bit from #11 Sacred Clowns I thought was pretty good:



A koshar is, I think, a religious subdivision of Pueblo society and/or a specific religious functionary (like a Shaman).

I finished Sacred Clowns. I liked it and can recommend it. But it had two obvious flaws. One was summed up by one Amazon reviewer as "Dog Pile on Chee!" And I couldn't agree more. Chee was working hard and yet he seemed to be treated by the author as a ne'er-do-well. There was a disconnect there.

Second, the plot got a little convoluted and simply having Leaphorn spell it all out in the end in two pages is not a good substitute for living-out and writing the plot in the book. This is by no means a fault unique to Hillerman.

And a small spoiler here, but this one plot element is worthy of a discussion on its own: One of the deaths in the book (and, of course, there's never just one...body inflation is common in these types of novels) is of a hit-and-run victim. This is solved in the next paragraph so stop if you intend to read the book fresh.

Well, Hillerman has set out the details to make the nearly perfect liberal case for never holding anyone accountable for their crimes. And the Navajo philosophy (as outlined by Hillerman) would seem to come right out of the George Soros bought-and-paid-for district attorneys. No need to do anything like hold outdated Western notions of justice and punishment. The Navajo way is to help the person back into harmony.

And there's something to be said for that...in conjunction with punishment. But Hillerman sets up a near-perfect lilly-white case to make his point: A grandfather, drunk on a rare outing (his birthday), accidentally runs over someone on the way home from his party. He stops but doesn't see anyone.

Later he learns what happens and confesses via a local radio's on-air mic (that is set aside for a certain time and day of the week for the public to make announcements). But nobody knows who the guy is. But Chee gets a few details out of the witnesses and tracks down a likely suspect.

Chee stakes out the house looking for the blue truck with a particular bumper sticker on it that was seen at the radio station. But no truck is to be seen from the road. Meanwhile a child coming home from school stops by Chee's truck and starts up a conversation. The child, Chee notes, is obviously a product of fetal alcohol syndrome and now he lives with his grandfather who, as the boy describes things, is his hero. They get along well. The grandfather goes to great lengths to take very good care of this special child.

So Chee plays judge and jury and next time he is by the house, he waits for the kid and strikes up another conversation. The boy had previously mentioned his grandfather's blue truck so Chee knows he has the right guy. Chee gives the kid a bumpersticker he has made and tells the kid to tell his father to scrape off the old one completely and put this one on in place of it. (It said something like "World's greatest grandson.")

And, mind you, Chee does all this in front of the girl he loves (the ambulance-chaser) and who he has more or less broken up with. And of course while watching all this transpire in the passenger seat (and getting the back story from Chee), she is instantly, as it were, wet for Chee and all is forgiven. Liberalism, never having to say you're sorry.

Now, mind you, it indeed wouldn't have done any good to throw the old man in jail. And it's likely there are times when some cops do make a judgment call and just go on to spend their time on other cases. But what we don't see is six months later when grandpa (alcoholism must run in the family) runs over some kid on his bicycle. Then where is the merit of Chee's liberalism? But then, the consequences of liberalism are never measured. It's always measured by a "big heart" and "good intentions."

So I thought this part of the plot was rather cheap writing. Still, it was interesting nonetheless.

I'm about halfway into The Fallen Man. The plot revolves around a body that was found on a ledge of a sacred mountain that the white people like to climb.

I can somewhat understand the Navajho disdain for the idiot outdoorsman liberal who desecrates their mountain, and all for little more than a stupid thrill. No. No. Honest. I'm not becoming sympathetic to the Navajo, per se. But you can start to see at least some things from their perspective. It's like the chance camaraderie I have with Muslims: I don't want the world run by a homosexual caliphate either.

But that's not to group the Navajo in with these dogs of society. One of the cops (Chee, I think) makes an interesting distinction. A Navajo (or Hopi, or Yute) will kill because he's liquored up and/or because of lust. But only the white man kills for money.

I don't know it that's true. But I'm guessing there's an element of truth there, at least when comparing the two cultures.

Leaphorn, now retired, has been hired by the family of the man who was found dead on a ledge high up on the sacred mountain. Leaphorn is fairly savvy to what they likely want. They just want to find a way to get the dead man's ranch back because there are valuable mineral deposits on it. But given how obvious this explanation is, you can expect there is perhaps something else going on.

But the lawyers met Leaphorn's demand of a twenty-week retainer ($20,000), non-refundable, so he's on the case...a case he initially handled ten years earlier or so. So he has his own reasons for wanting to tie-up this loose end.

Chee is spending some of his time chasing cattle rustlers. It's somewhat of a pointless task because the maximum penalty is a usually $100 fine (if that) or, at most, six months in jail. But his boss has tasked him with looking into it so he's giving it his all.

I don't know what happened to Leaphorn's love interest from the previous book. She's been completely written out of the picture in this following book. But Chee is still involved with the ambulance-chaser. They are officially engaged. The argument now is that Chee wants to do a traditional Navajo wedding but her mother wants the standard big-church and all the fixin's white wedding. The author drums up some other conflict between them regarding her ex boss who is now involved in what is called "the fallen man" case (the guy they found on the ledge high up on the sacred mountain). But writing about relationships doesn't seem to be Hillerman's forte.

A fairly pedestrian plot so far, but that is actually it's strength. It's not over-the-top.

I'm about one-quarter way in book seventeen of the series, Skeleton Man.

I think Jim Chee is in this one. But he's only been talked about so far, particularly in regards to his engagement to Bernadette Manuelito. So (minor spoiler) he apparently did dump the ambulance-chaser as seemed to be the shaky state-of-affairs at the end of book sixteen, The Fallen Man. Good riddance.

Joe Leaphorn is still somewhat fresh in retirement but he is feeling the boredom setting in. Luckily one of his old police friends, Cowboy Dashee, calls him in to pick his brain about a robbery that includes a diamond. There's a murder involved as well so the Feds are looking into it too.

The man they are holding for the robbery/murder is Dashee's cousin, Billy Tuve. But the cousin said that the diamond he was trying to pawn wasn't from the robbery in Zuni, that he had had it a long time. He claims that an old shaman down in the Grand Canyon gave it to him years ago. Oh, and by the way, the story involves a true event that occurred in 1956 when a DC-7 and a Super Constellation collide over the Grand Canyon.

So Leaphorn gets on the trail, starting with consulting the old trading store coot, McGinniss – who is reportedly dead or missing. And the hunt is on.

I finished Skeleton Man. And the logical question is, "Brad, if you keep complaining about these books, why in the world do you keep reading them?"

Well...I may be near the end of my desire to read more, just because. But it didn't help that I think Skeleton Man was terrible in its last ¼ of the book. I almost wonder if his daughter (or someone) ghost wrote the ending chapters. It was just so phoned-in, dull, and often facile.

But it was a good story up until they entered the Grand Canyon looking for some diamonds and bones. But because of that last quarter of the book, this is not one that I can recommend.

I'm about 60% through Coyote Waits. What strikes me is the general formula that Hillerman has. And this book is chock full of that formula.

Still, it's a good mystery that he has going thus far. Chee and Leaphorn are not (in this book) working together. They are in different departments or precincts but both are pursuing separate (and unauthorized or informal) investigations.

But the basic shtick is: Someone is murdered. This therefore becomes an FBI case. There are loose ends that the FBI doesn't care about. The local Navajos (including the cops) have (or dig up) some local knowledge not known to the FBI. More crap happens which complicates what had looked like a simple case. Rinse and repeat.