Rating: 
Summary: Not Hillerman's best, but still solid and entertaining.
Review: Tony Hillerman is such an accomplished writer, it's understandable that some reviewers are somewhat disappointed by this effort. Hillerman does an excellent job of presenting details of American Indian culture without resorting to the preachy tone some "politically correct" authors would use, and these details are missed in this novel. This novel also seems to lack some of the plot twists of some of Hillerman's earlier works-it winds up reading more like a straightforward crime story than the mysteries Hillerman has created in the past. These criticisms aside, I enjoyed the novel. It's a quicker read than some of Hillerman's earlier works, yet it still throws in a couple of twists. The characters Hillerman has created are interesting, and it's enjoyable to read another novel involving them. In short, the novel has its faults, but on balance I enjoyed it, and I look forward to reading Hillerman's new novel soon.
Rating:
Summary: Good, but not the best Hillerman
Review: "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.
Rating: 
Summary: His worst in the series.
Review: An interesting plot but all of Hillerman's strengths, careful delineation of place and characters is absent. Any characters from any author could fill the roles. Is someone writing for Hillerman now? I won't pay money for any further novels by this author until his writing improves.
A shame because his early novels are among my favorites.
Rating: 
Summary: Quite disappointed!
Review: I am a big fan of all mystery and crime novels, so naturally I went out to get this book. I was sadly disappointed, and almost regret my purchase. There wasn't the usual umph I feel from his novels. I do have one spark of good that came out of this. I took the chance on a new author, I bought her book and loved it. It was "Waves of Deceit" by Marlene de Velasco. I would read that one again over this anyday.
Rating:
Summary: Extremely Disappointing
Review: I normally enjoy Mr. Hillerman's works, and have a collection I like to return to over and over. This one, sadly, went straight into the box to go to the used book store. The editing was so horrible as to be a joke. It makes one wonder if his writing has always been this bad, and some UberEditor has been working magic for all these years, or if he was just under a huge rush to meet contractual obligations and couldn't be bothered to actually write a decent book.
It is also disappointing in that the story could have been exceptional, given a bit of care. This is an important issue to all the tribes, but should be just as important as a history lesson to all Americans as an indicator of just how corrupt the American government was in the past, and remains today.
Next time, I will take a little trip to the library before I automatically add the next Hillerman novel to my collection.
Rating:
Summary: is hillerman losing it ?
Review: i wouldn't bother with this one. it is a crashing bore. hillerman has been on a slide the past few years. he has reached bottom.
Rating:
Summary: What happened to Hillerman?
Review: I'm a big fan of his, and I have to say that this was a BIG letdown. It features: Stilted dialogue, no character development, no suspense, no description of Indian tradition and poor editing.
Avoid at all costs.
Rating:
Summary: good but not great
Review: I've read some of his other books. This one was good...but not his best effort.
Rating:
Summary: A COMPLEX , SUSPENSEFUL PLOT, BUT . . . . .
Review: I, like many of the other reviewers here, am a long standing fan of Tony Hillerman's mysteries featuring Joe "The Legendary Lieutenant" Leaphorn and Jim Chee. I, also like many other reviewers, found __THE SINISTER PIG__ to be a compelling mystery. It carries through many themes from earlier Hillerman mysteries: We have Sgt. Jim Chee of the Navajo Tribal Police, who is in love with Bernadette "Bernie" Manuelito, formerly of the Tribal Police, but now with the Border Patrol. Chee is afraid to tell her of his feelings for fear of rejection. We have the aforementioned Bernadette Manuuelito who is in love with Jim Chee, but also is afraid to express her love due to the same fear. We have the now retired "legendary Lieutenant" with his ever-present maps and his analytical mind. It's always a pleasure to meet these three again. We have a powerful businessman/criminal with money, political connections, and evil intentions who won't let anything or anyone stand in his way. We have a couple of ex-C.I.A. agents, one who is operating incognito and is murdered almost as the book opens, and the other who is working for our amoral rich man. Throw all of these characters into a pot and mix them with the search for 40 billion or so dollars of missing royalties never paid to various indigenous tribes, the C.I.A. man's murder, and a drug smuggling plot, and you have a mystery (or perhaps mysteries) that requires the best of Leaphorn's analytical abilities and Chee's intuition to begin to get to the bottom of things. Well, that's the plot in a nutshell, and it does make a story well worth reading, but, there is something missing that I have come to anticipate in Hillerman's novels. In the majority of his previous novels, he included, as an integral part of the plots, information that is not widely known about Navajo, or occasionally Hopi, customs, mythological history, and religious rites. I always felt that I was getting a cultural education as well as reading a good mystery. This unique aspect of his previous books was missing here, and I, for one, missed that aspect of his knowledge that he usually shares with us. Even with the unique aspect of his writing missing, __THE SINISTER PIG__ is a novel worth reading.
Rating: 
Summary: Hillerman as Good as Ever
Review: In this latest book of several - the Joe Leaphorn/Jim Chee series - a well dressed corpse is found near the Jicarilla Apache Indian reservation without identification or visible means of transportation. Sgt. Jim Chee of the Navajo Tribal Police is dispatched to the scene and caught up in a spiral of intrigue and white man's avarice and greed. Here is an authentic tribal setting that is engaging in its freshness and ring of truth; this is a mystery of riveting vigor. Sgt. Jim Chee and retired Joe Leaphorn combine forces once again to sort and tie a variety of clues into a satisfying conclusion to the story. Along the way, as an essential part of the story, Jim resolves his interest in former NTP office Bernie Manuelito. From the scandal at the Department of Interior concerning a missing four or forty billion dollars of Indian Trust money to the capitol of the United States, this tale grabs and holds the reader. Here's suspense, greed, avarice, theft, murder, love and the wide open American Southwest wrapped up in a tidy bundle of reader enjoyment. This is Tony Hillerman as good as he has ever been and hopefully will continue.
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