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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 fiance 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 attache case filled with a fortune in diamonds-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.… (more)
User reviews
Not since reading "Finding Moon" by Hillerman have I been so disappointed. In "Finding Moon", it appeared Hillerman lost interest in the story and ended the book abruptly. In "Skeleton Man", Hillerman began the book with a confusing first chapter and continued to confuse. For instance, the character Tuve said he traded a military entrenching tool (a type of shovel) for his diamond and, in the story told by the old storekeeper, the cowboy traded a knife. Later in the book, however, Tuve was referred to as trading a "fancy jackknife" for the diamond. I think Hillerman confused himself. Also, the basis of the book seems to be flawed--I, like a previous reviewer, thought DNA could be traced through generations rather than just from parent to child. And, worst of all for me as a Hillerman fan, the Chee and Leaphorn characters simply bored me to tears in this book.
As stated, I did not finish the book. At some point I decided my time was worth more than "Skeleton Man" had to offer. Very disappointing.
Published in hardcover by Harper Collins.
The mystery, involving a mid-air collision of airliners over the Grand Canyon and a suitcase full of lost diamonds handcuffed to a dead man's severed arm, was not as interesting as that description makes it sound, since the crash was decades earlier and the arm is a mere skeleton. But the setting, on the floor of the Grand Canyon, was really interesting and the physical description made me feel like I was there. So that's something, anyway.
While the Hopi sits in jail, stories surface about a lost briefcase of diamonds, as well as a denied inheritance. Those who want the diamonds, as well the woman who wants her rightful piece of her father's estate both go in search for these diamonds. They relate to a 1956 plane crash over the Grand Canyon. A diamond courier was on board. When his body was recovered, it was missing an arm and the attached briefcase. That case was reported spotted later in the Colorado river, tied up on some debris. But it was gone by the time the authorities were there to recover it.
Chee, researching the Hopi's claims that he was given the diamond, crosses paths with Leaphorn's investigation into the Trading Post robbery. Both cases rely on stories passed down through the generations, there is a lot of repetition of the events of the crash, as well as the report of the old man with the diamonds. For readers who don't like this level of repetition, I suggest either skimming these sections or skipping the book all together. Personally, I think the repetition worked well here, both thematically and for dispersing clues.
If you aren’t familiar with Tony Hillerman, he’s an Albuquerque newspaper reporter who has been writing a series of mystery novels about the Navajo Tribal Police for 30+ years now. The protagonists of the early novels alternated between Sergeant Jim Chee and Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn; in
With my contact with the Navajo limited to driving on I40 and stopping for fry bread, I can’t personally vouch for Hillerman’s authenticity; however, he has won an award from the Navajo (Special Friend of the Dinee) for accurate and sympathetic portrayal of Native American life. He’s also been criticized by notorious pseudoIndian Ward Churchill, which I would assume is something of a badge of honor in itself.
On the minus side, Hillerman’s been accused of being antiscience. Scientists appearing in Hillerman novels are sometimes the villain; if not, they are often portrayed as cold and uncaring “superbrains” (that term is actually used once). Forensic science is always a background process; if Hillerman needs some fingerprints or pollen analysis or whatever to advance the plot, it’s done by sending evidence off to “the lab” and waiting for a written report to come back. Hillerman’s eyewitnesses, on the other hand, are astounding; they can typically remember minute details of events that happened decades earlier. And they’re always accurate.
The first novels in this series are the best in terms of plotting and suspense; with time Hillerman has become increasingly formulaic. The latest, Skeleton Man, (well, the latest I’ve read) continues this trend. The premise is intriguing enough; the collision of two airliners over the Grand Canyon in 1956 results in a missing persons case 60 years later (I’m just barely old enough to remember that crash from TV reports; it was the largest loss of life from any US airline accident up till then and resulted in commercial airliners no longer being able to use VFR flight rules). However, the recent Hillerman pattern quickly emerges: a wealthy Anglo supervillain (described as “a member of the Anglo-Saxon, Nordic ruling class”), greedy and arrogant Anglo subordinate villains, Indian falsely accused of murder, incompetent FBI, even a repeat of the deus ex machina,/i> flash flood that ended an earlier novel (I’m not going to tell you which one; bad enough that I’m spoiling this one). At least there aren't any evil scientists. The redeeming feature of the recent novels has been the continuing development of the reoccurring characters; series novelists can do something with this that “mainstream” literature can’t (what, I wonder, happened to Oliver Twist as he grew up?). Worth reading if you’re comfortable with Jim Chee’s beat-up trailer or Joe Leaphorn’s coffee; get it from the library unless you're OCD about having them all in a neat row on your bookshelf.
It's certainly an interesting plot idea, and the descriptions of the canyon are superb, but the strong Native traditions of so many of Hillerman's Leaphorn & Chee novels definitely take a back seat in this one.