The Sinister Pig

Rating:
Summary: Has Hillerman Lost It ?
Review: What a disappointment. I wait for each new story that Tony Hillerman writes, hoping it will be as good as his last. Hillerman's first books were fantastic but the last several, Wailing Wind and Sinister Pig in particular, have not been up to what we expect. Sinister Pig was not good at all. It didn't even read like Hillerman. I hope he hasn't "lost it" as a writer. I am hoping that someone else is writing these books and he is only putting his name on the cover. If you are interested in a writer who is getting better instead of going downhill, who writers the same kind of stories as Hillerman, try Margaret Coel.

Rating:
Summary: Please bring back Native American culture
Review: When a man is found killed on Jim Chee's reservation, the FBI swoops in and D.C. headquarters determines it a hunting accident. Chee doesn't think so, but he doesn't know where to take it until he gets a letter from Bernie Manuelito--now a border patrol officer. Bernie has seen strange things on the border but when her boss takes her picture and then that picture shows up in drug runners' offices, she knows she is in trouble. She may value her independence, but she knows when she's in over her head and she is. With a little help from Lt. Joe Leaphorn, Chee untangles a mystery that involves a missing $40 billion of Bureau of Indian Affairs royalty money and the U.S./Mexico drug smuggling business. Whether he'll unravel the clues in time to save Bernie is another question.

Tony Hillerman fans will be overjoyed to see a new mystery featuring the wonderful Chee and Leaphorn. Both men are still struggling with their love interests, unable to quite put things together, suddenly inarticulate in the presence of the women they love. THE SINISTER PIG takes the mystery largely off the reservation and so misses out on the Native American culture and religion that provides such a depth to many of Hillerman's earlier Chee and Leaphorn novels.

Hillerman is cynical about the war on drugs, recognizing that its biggest supporters include the smugglers themselves--criminals who would be out of business if drugs were legalized and who are willing to do virtually anything to prevent this disaster. As always in Hillerman novels, the FBI is treated as incompetent and corrupt at the D.C. level, even as it sends its most talented agents into the hinterland. Hillerman also takes a dig at the Department of Homeland Security, recognizing that adding a layer of bureaucracy may not be the best way to improve safety.

Hillerman's strong writing makes this short mystery a page turner. Fans will want to read it even as they hope that Hillerman will return to the Native American culture that makes many of his earlier novels so powerful.

Rating:
Summary: Hillerman passes his expiration date
Review: What a disappointment! My dad and I share a love for Mr. Hillerman's novels, and I eagerly look forward to the chance to share the books as gifts for Father's Day, birthday, or Christmas. Hillerman's been going downhill for the last few books but this one is without a doubt the worst in the series. The somewhat promising premise is wasted with a connect-the-dots plot with nothing at stake and shallow, one-dimensional portrayals of the beloved main characters. The book hadn't even been proof-read, for heaven's sake. If Tony Hillerman actually wrote this book, it's time to hang it up and enjoy his retirement. As for me, I'll never tire of revisiting his great novels of the past.

Rating:
Summary: Who is the Sinister Pig?
Review: The shock of 9/11 pushed quite a few liberals over the edge from Yuppieism into outright conservatism. Prominent names that come to mind are TV commentator Charlie Rose and writer Christopher Hitchens (who got an early start going after Bill Clinton). In the Acknowledgements, Tony Hillerman whines about the U.S. Customs Service and Border Patrol being too "...undermanned and overworked...to stem the flood across our borders...", which makes me wonder if he, too, has joined the tide.

Certainly, nothing in this book suggests otherwise. Its story line is superficial, with familiar characters updated rather than developed. At best, it's a poor attempt at an international crime thriller. Every book can't be great and, thus, it's tempting just to chalk this one up and look forward to the next. However, it's hard to reconcile that apology with Hillerman's handling of officer Bernie Manuelito this time around. The author turns the smart and curious Manuelito into little more a sniveling young woman, impatiently waiting for the emotionally repressed but brave Jim Chee to come save and carry her back to the tribal lands and conjugal bliss. The book's title refers to a device used to clean gas and oil lines, but could it seen as a double entendre about the author's trajectory?

Rating:
Summary: Horrible boring filler by the legendary Tony Hillerman
Review: Boring plot. Lots of road map discussion. Stiff dialogue. Entirely uninteresting.

I had read some of Hillerman's earlier works and liked them. Did he change or did my taste change?

There are so many better mystery writers today that this is just a complete waste of time and money. I was glad to finish it just to put the book out of its misery.

Try Michael Connelly or James Lee Burke for some interesting reading.

Rating:
Summary: I was so disappointed.
Review: I share the sentiments of my fellow reviewers - this was contrived, shallow and a total let-down. It was as if Mr. Hillerman hired out the writing. I am a total fan, and eagerly awaited the book. Now I will eagerly await the next one. I am always an optimist.

Rating:
Summary: What happened?
Review: I, like many Hillerman fans, waited anxiously for Sinister Pig. Unfortunately, when it arrived I was disappointed. The story has potential, but fails to reach it. It's like Hillerman was told write your story using only X number of words, then you're done regardless of whether the story is filled out and completed or not. Is this the end of Chee and Leaphorn??

Rating:
Summary: Why such diverging reviews?
Review: This novel demonstrates the spare, elegant prose and tight plot that characterizes Hillerman at his best - as in Blessing Way or Dark Wind. Then too, the characters we have come to love, Jim Chee, Joe Leaphorn and even the interloping Cowboy Dashee as well as Jim Chee's latest heartbreaker, Bernie Manuelito, are center stage. So why the grousing. Perhaps Hillerman fans expected more fireworks after the two most recent clunkers. Or maybe, with the same cast in place, readers expected Hillerman to continue his exploration and exposition of the cultures of the native peoples of the southwest. But as Hillerman moves his action further south, he leaves much of the Navaho ethos behind, and the distinct customs of a people fade as the writer brings the Sonoran landscape to the foreground. Tellingly it is described as even more vacant, more of a vacuum of living things than the "Four Corners" setting of earlier novels. Bernie, now with the Customs Patrol carries extra plastic jugs of water in her vehicle, and she will need them as she discovers thirsty illegals stranded in the desert. Principal characters getting lost because of undistinguishable landmarks ( unthinkable on Navaho land ) leads more than once to important plot turns. Readers similarly may be exploring new and unfamiliar territory which is a bit more uncomfortable because of the presence of the familiar in different roles. If this is not classic Hillerman, it is still very good Hillerman, a differently focused Hillerman, and an entertaining read.

Rating:
Summary: A Thief of My Time...
Review: It's quite clear that Tony Hillerman has squeezed the last ounce of blood from this turnip. You know he's run out of ideas for his venerable Native American heroes when he's more interested in the villains of the book than the cops.

This book, definitely the worst in the series, is as flat as a pancake from start to finish, with a "mystery" as complex as an Encyclopedia Brown story. Chee and Leaphorn have basically nothing to do in this story except pass on endless, awkward exposition. Side characters slide in and out with no real purpose. The only cop who Hillerman seems to be interested in, the fetching Bernie Manuelito, becomes a helpless pawn in a macho boy's game of drugs and power. Even Hillerman's trademark Ansel Adams-esque descriptions of the southwestern scenery seem minimized and irrelevant. Hillerman can't even figure out how to end it properly, resorting to a horridly uncharacteristic "epilogue" that seems like it was written two hours before deadline.

This series really does have a lot of legs in it, but Hillerman no longer seems to have the energy to keep it moving. Perhaps it's time for someone else to take over with Hillerman serving as consultant. Because it would be a shame for Chee and Leaphorn to continue on the downward spiral that has plagued Hillerman's most recent efforts.

Rating:
Summary: (2 1/2) A Disappointing Effort Saved By An Ingenious Plot
Review: This book seems to be Tony Hillerman attempting to masquerade as James Patterson. Some familiar characters, a murder and related violence, short chapters, almost continual action and extremely limited character development. (Eliminate the many blank pages between chapters and it is barely two hundred small pages of large type. Thus, it is overpriced.)

The story has great potential. It has the well known characters of Sergeant Jim Chee of the Navajo Tribal Police and Bernie Manuelito, now separated geograpically from Chee as a rookie Border Patrol officer and with the future of their relationship in doubt. When a puzzling murder in Chee's jurisdiction intersects with Bernie's work, the retired "Legendary Lieutenant " Joe Leaphorn is called upon for consultation. At the same time there seems to be a puzzling interest emanating from a powerful source in Washington, D.C. concerning the ramifications of the case.

There is an intimation that the dead man may have been investigating the actual scandal concerning the loss (probably due to a combination of theft, embezzlement, indifference and incompetence) of billions of dollars of royalties from the Indian Tribal Royalty Fund held in trust by the Department of the Interior. This is a topic with great potential for an author with Hillerman's skills and knowledge, but it becomes peripheral to a pretty standard police procedural combined with the mystery of how the romance between Bernie and Jim will conclude. There is some excellent misdirection regarding both the nature of the underlying crinimal activity and its participants and who or what is the real "SINISTER PIG". But a lot of the oppportunities to develop the potential plot complications and resultant suspense were simply never pursued. Also, there were several loose ends that were never satisfactorily tied up despite the attempt to do so in the epilogue. (I cannot go into details without revealing too much of the plot.) It is almost as if Hillerman had an outline for a wonderfully complex story and then decided it was too complicated and so decided to quickly bring this part of the story to a close and leave the rest for a sequel.

As the title of my review implies, a few elements helped me decide to generously round up my rating to three stars. First, the plot is clever, and there is sufficient misdirection to keep the reader's interest. Second, it involves familiar characters. Third, this is a incredibly fast read. It is definitely a book for a short trip or a rainy afternoon. So if you are a Hillerman fan, lower your expectations and enjoy a few hours updating yourself on the latest happenings in New Mexico.