By Tony Hillerman. Copyright 2004, HarperTorch Publishing.

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Having read the entire series of Jim Chee/Joe Leaphorn Navajo detective novels, the only word I can come up with to describe The Sinister Pig is "disappointing." Allow me, however, to place that term in context. At his very worst, Tony Hillerman is better than most, and his worst novels in the Chee/Leaphorn series are only to be considered "worst" relative to the rest of the novels, which means to say that the worst of the novels have, to this point, been very good. The Sinister Pig is a decent page-turner, but compared to other books in the series, it represents a marked step down in quality. As Hillerman and his series get older -- the first Joe Leaphorn mystery was written in the 1970s -- his output has become less consistent. While he fails, in my opinion, to ever miss a beat or make a misstep in any of the books from the 70s or 80s, more recent novels haven't lived up to the lofty standards set by the previous stores.

The Sinister Pig is probably the weakest Leaphorn/Chee story to date, though as I said, it's still a pretty enjoyable read. The problems are several and, I suppose, very difficult to avoid in a series that spans thirty-odd years. For starters, none of the main characters are main characters in this tale of a high-powered politico using old pipelines to smuggle cocaine in from Mexico literally right under the noses of the DEA and Border Patrol. Navajo Tribal Police Sergeant Jim Chee is a supporting character overshadowed by Hillerman's preference for focusing on the villains of the piece. Bernie Manuelito, who left the NTP and joined the Border Patrol at the end of the last novel (The Wailing Wind, which I thought was superb), plays a greater role in this story, but her character doesn't really go anywhere for the most part, and very little about her is developed that we didn't already know. The "Legendary Lieutenant" Joe Leaphorn, retired from the NTP for the past several novels, never even leaves his living room and only appears in a couple expository chapters where he can dole out his findings to other characters. I know Joe is getting old and it's reasonable to assume he won't be in action the way he used to be, but I would have still liked to have seen more of him.

Instead, almost all the development that takes place involves the supporting "villain," Budge, who does the dirty work for the cartoonishly evil Winsor. In fairness, Budge is one of Hillerman's better villains, and focusing a good part of the story on him and his inner conflict wasn't necessarily a bad idea -- doing it at the expense of Chee, Leaphorn (who does have several thrilling "Leaphorn brews some coffee" scenes), and Bernie is the misstep. And as good a character as Budge is, Winsor, his politically connected, ambitious boss, is bad. Hillerman has usually served up some pretty good villains -- rarely were they all that villainous. They were simply regular people making bad decisions. Winsor, however, is an over-the-top fiend straight out of some good movie; a super-rich string-puller with connections in every branch of the government and law enforcement. He has no actual character. He's just a broad sketch and, as a result, not the least bit interesting.

Additionally, there is no mystery in this story. The mystery has always taken a back seat to character development in previous story, and it never mattered since the characters were always so engaging. That Hillerman lays out in the very first few chapters who the bad guys are and what they are doing is not unusual for him. That he gives us very little with which to sustain ourselves in the absence of a "whodunit" revelation is. Even if the previous mysteries could be solved well before the book's end, there were always little bits and pieces that could still surprise you, and like I said, watching the characters grow (or fail to grow, if we're talking Chee's lack of smoothness with women) and relate to one another was where most of the fun resided anyway, with a good dose more fun being had from Hillerman's expert and well-informed description of Navajo and other Southwestern Indian customs, myths, and traditions.

But missing is any of the attention to the details of Navajo culture that highlight so many of the previous novels, MIA along with any sort of satisfying development of the regular characters. Most of the action takes place off the Big Rez, down near the Mexican border. And although corpse powder is mentioned, this may be one of the very few of Hillerman's novels where someone doesn't try to blow it at someone else. There's also too much summarization of previous, better stories and events. If this book was a movie, it'd contain a lot of flashbacks to previous movies.

So there's all the nitpicking. Let's look at the good stuff, because as weak as the story may have been when compared to previous Hillerman mysteries, it was still an entertaining read. First, as I said, Budge is a solid, Hillerman-style bad guy who isn't really that bad a guy. While there is no mystery presented to us as readers, it's still decently fun watching Bernie and Chee work their way through the maze of clues -- sort of like watching a horror movie where we as the audience know there is a monster in the dark room, but the person walking slowly into the room doesn't realize this. It's a Hitchcock-style use of anticipation, even if deep down we know nothing too awful is going to happen to Bernie.

The conclusion also moves the Chee-Manuelito relationship forward, which is one of the few satisfying moments in this otherwise lackluster story. Watching Chee's torturously lunkheaded handling of romance has been one of the delights of his character since he first appeared, and we're able to let loose a giddy sigh of relief when he finally gets his crap together, although it took international drug smuggling and potential murder of Bernie (as well as the friendly harassment from his friend and reoccurring series character, Cowboy Dashee) to get him moving, and I assume he'll be just as clumsy and lunkheaded in the next story.

This is definitely not the Chee/Leaphorn story to begin with if you haven't read any of the previous. You might as well start way back at the beginning and work your way up from there, or if you insist on starting out with a more recent novel, go with The Wailing Wind (I myself started my Hillerman obsession when I randomly picked up Sacred Clowns while driving out West, doing so purely because koshari were interesting to me and I thought, "Hey! A koshari murder mystery!"). Although it succeeds at being a decent book, The Sinister Pig simply has too many obvious flaws to be counted as one of the better stories in the series.

Labels: Espionage