Tony Hillerman (1925–2008)

This is not part of the Navajo series of books. It's a self contained journalism based mystery story.

Reading it was like unearthing a time capsule of Hillerman's impressions of being a journalist in the 60s. A lot of the mechanics of journalism in the book is wonderfully archaic, predating the ubiquity of computing only just. The corruption uncovered in the novel however reads exactly like something out of the current news cycle. The more things change, the more they stay the same. It's a surprisingly fresh novel despite being half a century old at this point and I'd place it closest in my pop culture lexicon with The Wire season 2.… (mais)

Picked this up after watching a few episodes of Dark Winds and learning the author was considered a friend of the Navajo people. The native american angle for once feels like it has some depth, and describes cultural ideas and traditions that are just missing in other books (like how every indian in the Longmire series of books is a giant and laconic with vague unspecified spiritual beliefs). It's a bit of a time capsule being written in the 70s, but it's entertaining, has interesting characters and some very vivid descriptions of the arid landscape.… (mais)