Rating: 
Summary: Hillerman at his best
Review: This is the second book in the "Navajo Detective" series by Tony Hillerman and the first in which detective Joe Leaphorn is the principal charactor. Dance Hall of the Dead is a sad story. It concerns the murder or disppearance of two boys, a Navajo and a Zuni, and Joe Leaphorn's efforts to find the missing boys. The riddle is entwined with Zuni religious ceremonies which Leaphorn, a Navajo, tries to understand. Hillerman gives a virtual travelogue of the Zuni and Navajo country of New Mexico and Arizona in the early 1970s when the book was written. Leaphorn is a thoroughly likeable hero, rational, even-tempered, and ethical with a compulsion to get to the bottom of things. Hillerman is a master of creating an exotic atmosphere of Zuni and Navajo culture and ceremonies overlaid by the splendor of the natural setting. With such ornament, it hardly matters that the solution to the mystery itself is not very convincing. What a great title! If you're a wide-open-spaces-kind-of-a-person Hillerman is unbeatable as a mystery writer with a western twist. In Joe Leaphorn he has created a fictional detective who can take his place among the all-time best.
Rating:
Summary: Hillerman at his best
Review: This is the second book in the "Navajo Detective" series by Tony Hillerman and the first in which detective Joe Leaphorn is the principal charactor. Dance Hall of the Dead is a sad story. It concerns the murder or disppearance of two boys, a Navajo and a Zuni, and Joe Leaphorn's efforts to find the missing boys. The riddle is entwined with Zuni religious ceremonies which Leaphorn, a Navajo, tries to understand. Hillerman gives a virtual travelogue of the Zuni and Navajo country of New Mexico and Arizona in the early 1970s when the book was written. Leaphorn is a thoroughly likeable hero, rational, even-tempered, and ethical with a compulsion to get to the bottom of things. Hillerman is a master of creating an exotic atmosphere of Zuni and Navajo culture and ceremonies overlaid by the splendor of the natural setting. With such ornament, it hardly matters that the solution to the mystery itself is not very convincing. What a great title! If you're a wide-open-spaces-kind-of-a-person Hillerman is unbeatable as a mystery writer with a western twist. In Joe Leaphorn he has created a fictional detective who can take his place among the all-time best.
Rating:
Summary: Powerful and mesmerizing; a unique kind of thriller
Review: Tony Hillerman has written a list of novels so distinctively unique that they could classify as a genre unto themselves. With their brilliant depiction of Native American cultures and life in our Western desert, these novels are much more than detective/thrillers. When I first read Hillerman, starting with one of his more recent books, I thought that his mystery, as a mystery, was rather slight. Nevertheless, I was captivated. And as I continued to read, I realized that the reader becomes so caught up in Hillerman's world, so enamored by the ceremonials, religious practices and daily lives of these native people, that one can almost lose sight of the unfolding mystery. Not so, however, wih this early award-winning novel. In this novel, suspense builds to a smashing crescendo, while his portrayal of the Zuni's Dance Hall of the Dead ceremonial is perhaps the most fascinating of all such portrayals. The story begins with Ernesto Cata, a twelve-year-old Zuni boy, proudly and diligently practicing for his role as Little Fire God, in which he will lead his village and dance an all-night attendance on the Council of the Gods. But, in a practice run, the boy comes face to face with a kachina. An initiated and well-tutored Zuni, Ernesto knows what it means to see a kachina. And suddenly the Little Fire God has disappeared, leaving behind a pool of blood to soak into the desert sand. Then his best friend George Bowlegs, a Navaho, is also missing and Joe Leaphorn of the Navaho Tribal Police is called in to find him. When Leaphorn himself sees a kachina, he remembers a Zuni friend telling him that no one sees this spirit of the Zuni dead unless he himself is about to die. . .And far out on the desert, searching for the Navaho boy who reportedly has gone in search of the kachinas, Leaphorn stumbles into a trap. Shot with a tranquilizer hypodermic he is rendered physically helpless, unable to move a muscle. But his mind and senses are left super-alert and he can hear his stalker coming. . . The story of! the kachinas and the ceremonial held each year in honor of these benevolent spirits, so they will bring fertility to the seeds and rain to the dry land, gives this early novel a power that Hillerman has not since surpassed. But each of his books widens the window he has given us onto this Native world -- a view that enriches all Americans, while filling us with poignancy for all that has been lost to the American experience.
Rating:
Summary: More then a Mystery!
Review: Tony Hillerman's hero Leaphorn of the Navajo Tribal Police has to dig deep into the culture of the Navajo's neighboring tribe with it's secret societies and strange (to him) ideas of religion when a boy who's to impersonate a god at a Zuni festival dies and his best fried vanishes. As usual, Hillerman combines a deep insight into Native American tradition(s) with a dry humor and a compelling mystery story.
Rating:
Summary: The Fire God is missing
Review: Twelve-year-old Ernesto Cata (Zuñi) is practicing to be the Fire God in a local ceremony. His best buddy George Bowlegs (Navaho) is a Zuñi wana-be.
Ernesto is missing and there is a pool of blood by his bike. The next day his buddy George runs off. It is up to Sgt. Joe Leaphorn to find the boys before anything happens to them (if it has not already.)
As with most of Hillerman's novels everyone has different agendas and stories that overlap. There are alleged stolen artifacts form and archeological dig, and possibly a drug interest. They may or may not interact. We also get a good dose of Zuñi culture, and a feel that we are in the area.
Hillerman is nice enough to leave sufficient clues to let you figure out the mystery before Leaphorn and you then get to watch as he finally comes around to your way of thinking.
Another book by Hillerman "The Boy who Made Dragonfly" further describes the dance hall of the dead (Kothluwalawa.)
Author's Note:
"In this book, the setting is genuine. The village of Zuñi and the landscape of the Zuñi reservation are depicted to the best of my ability. The characters are purely fictional. The view the reader receives of the Sha'lak'o religion is as it might be seen by a Navajo with an interest in ethnology. It does not pretend to be more than that."
Rating:
Summary: If there's a 'best' Hillerman, this may be it.
Review: When every book in a series rates five stars, how do you choose a favorite? It's hard, especially with Hillerman's Leaphorn-Chee series. But if push comes to shove and I *have* to pick a favorite, I guess this is it. I have at times been tempted to think that Hillerman's appeal is partly 'merely' the appeal of his Navajo setting and 'adopted roots.' This book proves that it isn't the case. Abandoning the Navajo Reservation for a change and traveling to the much smaller Zuni one, the author shows us once and for all that he doesn't have to stay on The Big Res to keep us hooked or to educate us about authentic Native American issues. In the summer of 1998 I took all of the Hillerman books then published on a trip with me to Arizona and New Mexico, and used them as travel guides as I toured all the places he writes about. Though it was greener than I expected, the Zuni reservation was laid out exactly as described, and, while outsiders are no longer allowed to view Shalako, Hillerman's descriptions of the original Zuni pueblo and environs proved to be bang-on accurate. Then I traveled west into the territory where Leaphorn undergoes his 'Helpless Hero' scene, and again the canyons and mesas proved to be exactly as described. But that's all pretty much beside the point. Hillerman may be the prime tour guide of the Southwest, but his real strength is his characters, and here this book excels. George Cata is so real you can almost reach out and touch him, and so are all of the principal participants in the Shalako. The sinister 'white guys' are as creepy as anything Mario Puzo ever came up with, and Leaphorn, of course, towers over all. Though the Navajos involved are pretty much peripheral to the main plot, except of course for the kid who wants to be Zuni and the policeman himself, this book is just as authentic, just as suspenseful, and just as moving, as any of the others. And the tour-de-force suspense plot puts it over the top.
Rating:
Summary: If there's a 'best' Hillerman, this may be it.
Review: When every book in a series rates five stars, how do you choose a favorite? It's hard, especially with Hillerman's Leaphorn-Chee series. But if push comes to shove and I *have* to pick a favorite, I guess this is it. I have at times been tempted to think that Hillerman's appeal is partly 'merely' the appeal of his Navajo setting and 'adopted roots.' This book proves that it isn't the case. Abandoning the Navajo Reservation for a change and traveling to the much smaller Zuni one, the author shows us once and for all that he doesn't have to stay on The Big Res to keep us hooked or to educate us about authentic Native American issues. In the summer of 1998 I took all of the Hillerman books then published on a trip with me to Arizona and New Mexico, and used them as travel guides as I toured all the places he writes about. Though it was greener than I expected, the Zuni reservation was laid out exactly as described, and, while outsiders are no longer allowed to view Shalako, Hillerman's descriptions of the original Zuni pueblo and environs proved to be bang-on accurate. Then I traveled west into the territory where Leaphorn undergoes his 'Helpless Hero' scene, and again the canyons and mesas proved to be exactly as described. But that's all pretty much beside the point. Hillerman may be the prime tour guide of the Southwest, but his real strength is his characters, and here this book excels. George Cata is so real you can almost reach out and touch him, and so are all of the principal participants in the Shalako. The sinister 'white guys' are as creepy as anything Mario Puzo ever came up with, and Leaphorn, of course, towers over all. Though the Navajos involved are pretty much peripheral to the main plot, except of course for the kid who wants to be Zuni and the policeman himself, this book is just as authentic, just as suspenseful, and just as moving, as any of the others. And the tour-de-force suspense plot puts it over the top.
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