Customer Reviews

Sinister Pig

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(36)
3 star:		(32)
2 star:		(21)
1 star:		(27)

 

 

"The Sinister Pig" is another in Hillerman's long-running series of mystery novels centering upon the now retired, but hardly inactive, Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn and Sergeant Jim Chee of the Navajo Tribal Police. This time the plot is in part inspired by the continuing scandal over the mismanagement - embezzlement and outright theft may be closer to the point - of funds due to Southwest Indian tribes for oil, gas, and coal taken from their reservations under Federal auspices. An investigator sent by a powerful Washington, DC, senator to nose around turns up dead with a bullet in his back. It is Jim Chee's case - or at least as much of the case as the FBI will let him handle - but it is immediately clear that somebody with high connections back in Washington wants the investigation squelched.

Meanwhile, Jim Chee has something else on his mind. Bernadette Manuelito, formerly an officer in the Navajo Tribal Police, has taken a new job with the Border Patrol, 200 miles away, just when Chee was working up his resolve to make his personal interest clear to her. And now Bernie has stumbled on some mysterious goings-on along the Mexican border that might tie in to the unsolved murder back home.

Hillerman departs somewhat from his usual format by writing several chapters from outside the viewpoint of Leaphorn and Chee (and Bernie Manuelito). Unlike in most Hillerman novels, we very quickly learn who the bad guys are, although a mystery remains until the final chapters as to exactly what they are doing. In general Hillerman's villains are not especially villainous, their motivations often arising from quite ordinary circumstances that lead them into crimes they never intended. But in "The Sinister Pig" the chief villain is as close to plain evil as Hillerman is ever likely to get.

One disappointment: an element which usually sets Hillerman's mystery novels apart from all others is their exploration of the culture and religion of the Navajos and their Indian neighbors, this being integral to the book plot and often crucial to the solution of the mystery at hand. In the present novel we see almost nothing of this, except for some peripheral matters that only touch upon Jim Chee himself. Washington powerbrokers are a less engaging group than the people of the Big Rez.

"The Sinister Pig" is not the best of Hillerman, to be sure, and it might be argued that it works primarily as simply being part of a continuing series about characters to whom we have come to feel close over the years. But a Hillerman book that is not amongst his best work is still a good mystery. And readers who count Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee as literary friends will want to find what has now happened in their personal lives.

Hillerman's Navajo novels have continuing background stories that develop from novel to novel over time. Therefore, readers new to Hillerman would be well advised to begin not with this latest novel but back at the beginning of the series, getting to know the characters as their lives evolve. There's plenty of good reading to be had along the way.

I've fallen in love with Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee in all the other books involving one or both of these Navajo Tribal policemen. It's usually so satisfying to see the way the Legendary Lieutenant approaches a problem, especially in contrast to his younger colleague. So I've always must see what they're up to, and so should most readers who consider the mystery capable of plenty of literary satisfaction. As always, Hillerman's descriptions of the Navajo Nation landscape are wonderful; so real you can almost feel the charged air as summer thunderstorms build, hear water racing down the wash, see and touch the earth.

Unfortunately, this latest book strays too far from home. Hillerman doesn't capture the beauty of the more southern desert and Apache country. While Bernie Manuelito is usually somewhat endearing, in this book her behavior is almost too wide-eyed to be plausible, especially considering she's a cop. And Chee and Leaphorn, as well as the ever-appealing Cowboy Dashee, seem like minor characters in what turns out to be a fairly stock spy/thriller caper, with a bad guy so bad he's almost comic. And the ending--please Mr. Hillerman--you've got to keep Jim Chee forever lost and questing! If he grows up, the world will grow old...

It is always wonderful to open another Hillerman and follow the latest law enforcement adventure in the Four Corners. Meeting up with Jim Chee and Joe Leaphorn is just like meeting up with old friends. And reading this newest Hillerman brings one quite up-to-date with each of the men, their current love life, and their efforts to solve a mystery of international intrigue.

This is not Hillerman's best novel, but one can forgive him because he does present a fast page turner and educates along the way. Chee's romantic interest, Bernie Manuelito has gone to work for the Feds in the Border Patrol, and unlikely as it may seem, she becomes linked to a murder in the Four Corners.

The pig involved takes on several meanings, but would be especially familiar to anyone in the pipeline trade. The double meaning, of course, indicates the greed that leads to corruption within governmental bodies.

This tale involves Washington, D. C. subterfuge, and enlists the Navajo Tribal Police, U. S. Bureau of Land Management, U. S. Border Patrol, the F. B. I., and the Office of Homeland Security. Hillerman skillfully sets his tale in the midst of the real world worries of the 21st century.

Will "third time's charm" work for Chee in his stumbling romance with Bernadette? The romance and the mystery intertwine for a comfortable quick read and satisfying solution.

Can't wait for the next Hillerman in order to meet up Leaphorn and Chee once more. If you are a Hillerman fan, this is a must read.

I hadn't been expecting to hear from Tony Hillerman again so soon. It hasn't been that long since THE WAILING WIND.
This one is a very rapid read, with much of the action happening away from the Navajo reservation (Always a bad move, Tony). The plot centers around the murder of a retired CIA operative who's investigating the theft of billions of dollars in Indian oil, gas, coal, and timber royalties for a United States senator.
Bernie Manuelito has taken a job with the border patrol to get away from Jim Chee, her pushy boss, when she stumbles across a suspicious construction project in the middle of the desert. Unknowingly, she has become embroiled in a smuggling operation and her picture is being spread around by Mexican drug traffickers as a DEA agent to be on the lookout for. Meanwhile, Chee is pining away for Bernie, trying to think of a reason to go get her and ask her to marry him. This is where Joe Leaphorn enters the picture. He gets out his maps and is able to tie the original murder scene to some abandoned oil and gas pipelines leading from Sonora, Mexico, to the site of the murder. The Sinister Pig of the title is a device used to clean the insides of the pipelines. Joe quickly grasps the possibilities.
Hillerman uses multiple viewpoints to help us follow the action. There's a billionaire drug smuggler, his former CIA pilot (the most interesting character in the book), and a corrupt border patrol supervisor and of course our friends Joe, Jim, and Bernie.
I'd be surprised if this book is over 70,000 words it reads so fast. I liked a couple of things about it, besides Chee and Leaphorn of course, two of the best characters in the mystery genre: the factual basis of the book, the royalty money which the Department of the Interior lost or stole and the great character, Budge C. de Baca, the billionaire's pilot, a romantic felon I haven't seen anywhere else. I also like Cowboy Dashee, a recurring character in the Leaphorn/Chee series, who is now working for the Bureau of Land Management. He and Chee add comic relief to what might otherwise be a pretty conventional mystery.

"The Sinister Pig" (a term which has a couple of meanings in the book) is another fine addition to Tony Hillerman's Joe Leaphorn/Jim Chee series. This one involves a somewhat more complex plot than most of the previous ones, and as for character development, Mr. Hillerman seems to take it for granted that the readers of this book have also read at least some of the others, and that therefore he does not need to go into too much detail as to the personalities of his characters. Having said that, though, I enjoyed the book very much, and my only real complaint is, as with "The Wailing Wind", it is, at about 230 pages, just too short. But it is always a rare treat to be reunited with our old friends from the Navajo Tribal Police, and as an added bonus this edition features a happy ending romantically for the ever-lovelorn Jim Chee. Here's hoping Mr. Hillerman keeps the Leaphorn/Chee series coming, and that he adds a hundred or so pages to his next tale.

Not since FINDING MOON have I been so disappointed in Tony Hillerman.

When I buy a Hillerman book, I don't want to read about an evil, faceless puppetmaster who pulls string in Washington and wrecks havoc in the Jim Chee and Joe Leaphorn's 'four corners' of the world.

I want to read about problems on the reservation...or difficulties within the Navajo Tribal Police...or about how the native Americans are trying to preserve their ancient knowledge.....or about how Joe Leaphorn is finding a new life after the death of his beloved wife...or about how Jim Chee can't ever get it right with women. I also want the book to be more than 240 pages. This story felt like formula fiction, something Hillerman has avoided up to now.

The story about siphoned off oil and gas probably needs to be told, but I think a non-fiction expose would be a better venue for unveiling what could possibly be the biggest heist in history.

I had another issue with the story. I never for one minute believed the author's reasoning behind Bernadette Mauelito's leaving the Navajo Tribal Police for a job with the Board Patrol. Bernie was too close to her family/clan to move to the Mexican border. It was completely out of character for her. I would have understood a 'temporary assignment' with the feds, but having her choose to make that kind of radical move just never felt right.

For Jim Chee fans, the book does contain a pleasant surprise. I look forward to seeing how Chee handles it in the next story.

This is not Hillerman's best -- but after so many good ones, he's due a hiccup.

I gave THE SINISTER PIG 4 stars because, hey, it's part of a good series with very likeable characters and it is a page turner. However, on other accounts it is lacking. The strength of the Jim Chee/Joe Leaphorn mysteries has been character and cultural setting. This time out, the story is plot-driven and largely takes place off the Four Corners Navajo reservation. Much time is spent on the "guest star" characters and not so much on our old friends. Thus, there is a thinness to this book despite a plot that starts off ambitiously snuffling up Washington corruption, post 9-11 paranoia, corrupt CEOs, drug smuggling, and other zeitgeist.

The good news is, those who have read earlier entries in the series will be amused to find all of the other regulars finally losing patience with Jim Chee's romantic klutziness and variously taking him aside and essentially saying, look here, the time has come to get on with things. Also, Hillerman takes what might be his best shot yet at satirizing the bureaucracy. There is a great scene where the FBI, New Mexico State Police, Bureau of Land Management, DEA, and representatives of at least two other agencies are disputing jurisdiction and who should show up but Homeland Security, insisting on authority over everything and everybody.

A last comment: the hardcover edition is riddled with publishing errors, mostly misplaced punctuation. Isn't proofreading on editorial job descriptions anymore?

I love Tony Hillerman. In my mind, he cannot write a bad novel. Also he seems to be a very genuine individual. The characters he creates are unique in mystery fiction. I would love just reading about them going to the mall.

This is most conventional Hillerman yet, and I don't mind. It starts with a mysterious man who gets killed in the first chapter (in Hillerman novels, the murder always happens in the first chapter). It then brings Jim Chee in, them switches to Bernie Manuelito far from home and eventually in enters Joe Leaphorn with his professor friend. And eventually even Cowboy Dashee (?) enteres the story. Its like a gathering of old friends. It even has a sympathic hitman.

I agree with most all of the criticism of this book and I don't care. A few years ago, Mr. Hillerman had a case of cancer and didn't write anything for a while. I guess I count every book after that a bonus book.

As you can tell, this is not an objective review. I'll take a book like this from Hillerman over about every other author I read which includes Jonathan Kellerman, Ruth Rendell and Colin Dexter. I like Alex Delaware, Inspector Wexford and Chief Inspector Morse, but the Navajo people as portrayed by Mr. Hillerman are uniquely interesting.

For years, Tony Hillerman has been giving us wonderful plots, intricate characters and breathtaking verbal landscapes. With "The Sinister Pig," unfortunately, it seems Mr. Hillerman is growing tired of his Leaphorn/Chee series.
The plot of "The Sinister Pig," his latest in the series, is promising, but Hillerman seems to have lacked either the energy or the desire to flesh it out into what could have been a fantastic novel. Instead, what we get is a partially realized concept that clocks in at an anemic 240 pages. (And it's 240 heavily padded pages, at that, with blank pages between chapters, large type and heavy leading on the part of the typesetter. Let's face it: This is more a novella masquerading as a novel than the real thing.)
The book is also rife with proofing errors, including more missing question marks than one can count and at least one instance in which he accidentally refers to Chee as Leaphorn in mid-scene. That, plus a far-from-satisfying closing, makes "The Sinister Pig" feel like a rush job, as if Hillerman was more interesting in finishing this project quickly than crafting a quality piece.
Fans of Mr. Hillerman's work have come to expect much more, and they all know he's capable of top-notch fiction. Unfortunately, "The Sinister Pig" doesn't fit that category.

As I read this book, the thought that kept intruding that Tony Hillerman is no longer young (he'll be 78 this year). I strongly suspect that this book, which comes so strongly on the heels of "The Wailing Wind," may well be his last.

Other reviewers have noted that this book adds nothing new to our understanding of the central characters. But it does leave them with fewer unresolved issues than prior books. Rather than being the cynical money-making effort depicted in some reviews below, this book appears to be a parting gift from an aging author who wanted to give the series a more satisfying closure than "The Wailing Wind" had left us with.

That said, it's not a great stand-alone book. The first chapter, which introduces the retiring CIA agent who will soon become the murder victim, is painfully cliched, seemingly cobbled together from bad spy movies and political thrillers. The mystery is obvious (partly because huge chunks of it are told from the villains' perspective), and except for a little bit of magic with maps, Leaphorn and Chee get no chance to show off their detecting brilliance. The setting, in southern New Mexico's "boot heel" region, is rendered generically, without the detail for which Hillerman is famous-as though he'd written it from maps and memory. Plot elements never connect, and there are gaps in the police procedure (most notably involving a car, which is missing in one chapter but has been fingerprinted in another chapter, with no mention that I could find of its being discovered).

The cobbled-together feel of this book, its lack of complexity, and its short length make me suspect that Hillerman's health is failing and that he rushed it to completion while he still could. Hopefully I'm wrong. Regardless, readers of the series this book should save this book for last-it's merely an epilog to a long and honorable series. If you've read all the books, this one is a must read. If you've not, you'll be disappointed.

And if I'm right, thanks Tony, for making the effort to give us a parting gift.