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Joe Leaphorn, former Navajo tribal police lieutenant, is not a happy retiree. So when his successor asks him to look into how a young Hopi named Billy Tuve came by a valuable diamond the boy tried to pawn for a fraction of its worth, Joe finds himself involved in a five decade old mystery. It dates back to a plane crash in the Grand Canyon, one that took the life of a man whose putative daughter also has an interest in the diamond; it could lead her to her father's remains, from which she hopes to extract enough DNA to establish her birthright. For good measure, Hillerman adds a couple of villains determined to beat her to the site of the crash, a cache of other diamonds long since given up for lost in the Canyon's watery depths, and a Hopi ritual that's kept the site secret for years. It's a good yarn, well but twice told; Hillerman sets it up in a chronologically confusing opening chapter, in which Joe spins the story for a couple of former law-enforcement colleagues--not just to entertain or enlighten them but to demonstrate what he calls his "Navajo belief in universal connections. The cause leads to inevitable effect. The entire cosmos being an infinitely complicated machine all working together."
Hillerman is a name-brand writer with a huge and well deserved following. His evocation of the landscape of the Southwest is as compelling as it ever was, and many familiar characters from the other 18 novels in this prize-winning series appear here, notably Sergeant Jim Chee and border patrol officer Bernie Manuelito, the woman Chee hopes to marry. Joe Leaphorn remains his most fully-realized protagonist; his perspective on life, destiny, and the sometimes uneasy truce between Native Americans and whites gives this series a unique place in the genre. But as evidenced by his latest, Hillerman's hero needs more than a retired duffer's memories to keep him vital and alive, even for his most dedicated fans. --Jane Adams
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. In MWA Grandmaster Hillerman's sterling 17th Chee/Leaphorn novel, a 1956 collision between passenger planes high above the Grand Canyon leaves a courier's arm and attached diamond-filled security case unaccounted for after almost half a century. Enter retired Navajo Tribal Police Lt. Joe Leaphorn, who must try to connect the dots between an old robbery involving a valuable diamond and a more recent crime involving another diamond, both of which may somehow be related to the plane-crash jewels. The puzzle soon draws in fellow Navajo officer Sgt. Jim Chee and former cop Bernie Manuelito, Chee's soon-to-be bride. Billy Tuve, a cousin of Chee's lawman buddy Cowboy Dashee, is arrested after trying to pawn a gem believed to have come from the more recent robbery. Dashee enlists Chee's help to verify Tuve's story of a mysterious old man who gave him the jewel during a journey to a canyon-bottom shrine. But the good guys soon learn there are plenty more people in the hunt, and some will stop at nothing to get what they're after. The stakes are high and the danger escalates clear through to the final pages. Hillerman continues to shine as the best of the West. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From School Library Journal
Adult/High School - When two robberies involving magnificent diamonds appear related to a horrific airplane collision that occurred above the Grand Canyon back in 1956, series regular Lieutenant (ret.) Joe Leaphorn of the Navajo Tribal Police is brought in to ponder the connections. Though the aging Leaphorn's involvement in the puzzle is mainly cerebral, there is plenty of action for Sergeant Jim Chee and his fiancée, former police officer Bernie Manuelito. The two descend into the canyon's perilous depths in search of an elusive elder who may have found a cache of precious stones gone missing for half a century. Others are prowling the same territory in hopes of locating a gem-filled security case last seen fastened to the wrist of a courier aboard one of the doomed flights. The booty - and the courier's skeletal remains - will establish claims, rightful or otherwise, to an immense fortune, and the seekers are not inclined to cooperate with authorities. Suspense builds as all treasure hunters approach dangerous ground, where they meet for a thrilling climax. Drawing on a real-life airline disaster, Hopi legends, and current forensic science, this is a crackerjack addition to the Chee/Leaphorn mysteries. Fine leisure reading from a master of the form. - Starr E. Smith, Fairfax County Public Library, VA Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Bookmarks Magazine
Hillerman, whose crime fiction bespeaks of Native Americans’ rich history, once again mines the Southwest for a story that intricately links tribal mysticism, desert landscapes, and contemporary culture. Devoted readers will find the usual mix of compelling characters, including a Paiute mystic, a Hopi, and the Skeleton Man (the Death Kachina, whose myth Hillerman brings up to date). Though Hillerman is a first-class storyteller, critics agree Skeleton Man is not his best. Leaphorn (he is, after all, retired) takes a back seat to the bad guys. The 1956 airline disaster provides for an excellent story, but it has too many loose ends— and too little suspense. Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.
From AudioFile
Navajo police officers Joe Leaphorn (now retired) and Jim Chee (now a sergeant) are united in the latest in Hillerman's award-winning series. This case involves a decades-old airplane crash near the Grand Canyon, a woman's attempt to reclaim a lost legacy, and missing diamonds. As a young Hopi man tries to pawn a valuable diamond, he sets in motion a chain of events that ends at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Leaphorn interviews an old acquaintance to build a sequence of related occurrences. Chee helps his friend, Cowboy Dashee, clear the Hopi charged in the theft. George Guidall does an excellent job as reader. He navigates the Navajo words easily and gives each character a distinctive sound. R.C.G. © AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine
From Booklist
*Starred Review* The Skeleton Man, according to Hopi legend, is the Guardian Spirit of the Underworld, the one who takes away mortals' fear of death. In Hillerman's nineteenth Navajo Tribal Police mystery, this ancient belief has special, chilling application to a search for skeletal remains in the Grand Canyon. The novel takes off from an actual plane disaster--the 1956 collision of a United Airlines and a TWA plane over the Grand Canyon. When a small-time criminal tries to pawn a diamond he allegedly discovered on the floor of the Grand Canyon, a series of events (what Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn, now retired but still involved, believes are part of the universe's interlocking chains) is triggered, all leaping from a quest for a vast inheritance. The first link in the chain is that the diamond belonged to one of the plane-crash victims, a man who was carrying a fortune in jewels in an attache case handcuffed to his wrist. The victim's arm is central to the quest, since DNA will determine who deserves the inheritance. Hillerman manages to craft both a rip-roaring adventure tale, partially set in the treacherous downward slopes of the Grand Canyon, and a character-driven mystery in which Leaphorn's melancholy over retirement and Bernie Manuelito's uncertainty over her engagement to Sergeant Chee are both believable and involving. Another Hillerman stunner. Connie Fletcher
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Kirkus Reviews
"Considerable suspense in the race to the bottom of one of the most spectacular and treacherous landscapes Hillerman’s ever explored."
Santa Fe New Mexican
"One of his strongest and most specific plots...amusingly wry dialogue...keenly observed detail."
Denver Post
"A grand mystery."
People
"A fascinating whodunit and a window into a rich culture....a gem."
Book Description
Hailed as "a wonderful storyteller" by the New York Times, and a "national and literary cultural sensation" by the Los Angeles Times, bestselling author Tony Hillerman is back with another blockbuster novel featuring the legendary Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn and Sergeant Jim Chee. Former Navajo Tribal Police Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn comes out of retirement to help investigate what seems to be a trading post robbery. A simple-minded kid nailed for the crime is the cousin of an old colleague of Sergeant Jim Chee. He needs help and Chee, and his fiancée Bernie Manuelito, decide to provide it. Proving the kid's innocence requires finding the remains of one of 172 people whose bodies were scattered among the cliffs of the Grand Canyon in an epic airline disaster 50 years in the past. That passenger had handcuffed to his wrist an attaché case filled with a fortune in -- one of which seems to have turned up in the robbery. But with Hillerman, it can't be that simple. The daughter of the long-dead diamond dealer is also seeking his body. So is a most unpleasant fellow willing to kill to make sure she doesn't succeed. These two tense tales collide deep in the canyon at the place where an old man died trying to build a cult reviving reverence for the Hopi guardian of the Underworld. It's a race to the finish in a thunderous monsoon storm to see who will survive, who will be brought to justice, and who will finally unearth the Skeleton Man.
About the Author
Tony Hillerman is past president of Mystery Writers of America and has received their Edgar and Grand Master Awards. His other honors include the Center for the American Indian's Ambassador Award, the Silver Spur Award for the best novel set in the West, the Navajo Tribe's Special Friend Award, the National Media Award from the American Anthropological Association, the Public Service Award from the U.S. Department of the Interior, the Nero Wolfe Award, the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Oklahoma Center for the Book, an honorary life membership in the Western Literature Association, and the Grand Prix de Littérature Policiére. In addition to his election to Phi Beta Kappa, Tony Hillerman has been named Doctor of Humane Letters at Arizona State University and at Oregon's Portland State University. He lives with his wife, Marie, in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
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