Navajo policeman, now retired but still working cases
privately, Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn is called to consult on a
museum donation theft. Or is it theft? Nobody seems sure if
the historic item from the Navajo leaders was donated or
not. Like THE TALE TELLER or traditional story weaving on a
rug, this missing biil, which is a traditional dress,
contains some of the deep-rooted tragic history of the Dineh.
Officer Jim Chee and Officer Bernie Manuelito, happily
married and living in a trailer, experience a scorching
summer. Thefts from the elderly are a very distressing part
of the crime picture and the Four Corners are not immune to
intrusions from the modern world. All the local knowledge
they can summon may help, but Bernie finds a dead body near
a jogging track, guarded by a patient dog. Someone got more
deeply in trouble than even the Navajo Tribal Police can
handle, and the FBI aren't long in arriving.
Anne Hillerman has really come into her own with the
complex, interwoven story. I admire the way she has
portrayed Joe Leaphorn now, as a senior who has a mild brain
injury from a shooting, but is coping well not only with
daily life but with crime resolutions. Leaphorn can speak
his native tongue fluently but now stumbles over English, so
if he isn't talking to an older member of the Dineh, he
needs an interpreter or to use a laptop. As much as anything
else, this makes us aware that the old ways are being
somewhat lost, the kids are more accustomed to TV and the
internet than to ceremonies and storytelling.
Relationships ebb and flow, families fill with love or
spite. Colleagues can be your best chance of survival, a
pain to work with daily, or your worst nightmare. We get the
running story of a baby on the way someday this month, in
the searing heat and dry air. And we learn a great deal
about the clean environment of pines, Gambel oaks,
cottonwoods, and sage. The people here have lived in harmony
with the land, revering the mountains and watching for
cooling clouds, but today's police drive SUVs and use
smartphones. THE TALE TELLER continues a series I have been
reading with great absorption for decades, begun by superb
author Tony Hillerman and continued in this, her fifth
novel, by award-winning reporter Anne Hillerman, his
daughter, who lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Sounds like an
awesome place to live.
Legendary Navajo policeman Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn takes
center stage in this riveting atmospheric mystery from New
York Times bestselling author Anne Hillerman that combines
crime, superstition, and tradition and brings the desert
Southwest vividly alive.
Joe Leaphorn may have retired from the Tribal Police, but he
finds himself knee-deep in a perplexing case involving a
priceless artifact—a reminder of a dark time in Navajo
history. Joe’s been hired to find a missing biil, a
traditional dress that had been donated to the Navajo
Nation. His investigation takes a sinister turn when the
leading suspect dies under mysterious circumstances and
Leaphorn himself receives anonymous warnings to
beware—witchcraft is afoot.
While the veteran detective is busy working to untangle his
strange case, his former colleague Jim Chee and Officer
Bernie Manuelito are collecting evidence they hope will lead
to a cunning criminal behind a rash of burglaries. Their
case takes a complicated turn when Bernie finds a body near
a popular running trail. The situation grows more
complicated when the death is ruled a homicide, and the
Tribal cops are thrust into a turf battle because the murder
involves the FBI.
As Leaphorn, Chee, and Bernie draw closer to solving these
crimes, their parallel investigations begin to merge . . .
and offer an unexpected opportunity that opens a new chapter
in Bernie’s life.
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