Hillerman’s ‘Skeleton Man’ lacks spark
Tony Hillerman is 79 and has been writing novels featuring Navajo Tribal Police Lt. Joe Leaphorn and his protege, Sgt. Jim Chee, for almost 40 years.
Leaphorn has retired but can’t keep from going to the office and working on cases. Hillerman’s the same way.
His new novel, “Skeleton Man,” is not a bad book, but it’s a disappointing one.
The idea of using a 1956 airline disaster over the Grand Canyon as the jumping-off point for a plot involving stolen diamonds and disputed inheritance is an excellent one, and Hillerman continues to be a subtle observer of the differences between Navajo and Hopi culture. It’s still not hard to see why his Leaphorn/Chee series is one of the most original and influential in modern crime fiction.
But the spark that made Hillerman’s early books so special has gone out. The pace that once seemed relaxed and unforced has slowed to a crawl, and the characters are put through their paces perfunctorily. Some loose ends in “Skeleton Man” are sloppily tied up on the last two pages, as if Hillerman was ready to wrap things up and remembered that he left some unfinished business.
“Skeleton Man” opens with a clumsy, confusing framing device. Leaphorn is having coffee and doughnuts with his buddies at the Navajo Inn and talking about the case. Character names and motivations are tossed around with the cream and sugar, and it takes several chapters to figure out who’s who and what they’re up to.
Leaphorn is having a little retirement anxiety. Chee is having a little anxiety about his upcoming marriage to his former subordinate, “Bernie” Manuelito, who’s having some second thoughts of her own. Everyone’s worried about a Hopi named Billy Tuve who’s been accused of murder after trying to pawn a $20,000 diamond for $20.
The diamond came from a suitcase carried by one of the 128 passengers on the two planes that collided over the Grand Canyon on June 30, 1956. It was a horrible event – wreckage and bodies scattered across the canyon – and should have been ripe material for Hillerman. His references to it are offhand, though, just as his descriptions of the canyon are routine.
Once he gets everyone into the canyon, the action should pick up, but he switches point of view repeatedly and doesn’t build any suspense before staging the most obvious, least menacing flash flood in the history of the Grand Canyon.
Hillerman’s memoir, “Seldom Disappointed,” is a fine book. His readers have seldom been disappointed, but they’re getting used to the feeling.