Tony Hillerman's Legacy on Shaky Legs

First of all, I want to make it clear that I admire Anne Hillerman's courage to continue her father’s work to bring Navajo folklore, culture and life closer to a wider readership. Anne’s touch is gentle and full of understanding, when she describes the beauty of nature in the reservation and the mystical tribal lore, but she does not hesitate to confront the reader with the harsh and cruel truth of alcoholism, domestic violence and child neglect prevalent in the poverty stricken environment of Navajo-land.

While Anne’s prose is more or less at par with her father’s, she still has to learn, how to draft a plot and create a decent storyline. In this novel the Navajo policewoman Bernadette Manuelito witnesses the explosion of a car bomb in the parking lot at a high-school basketball game. It looks like the intended victim was a tribal mediator, working on a high profile land use project in the Grand Canyon and ecoterrorism or something similar seems to be the likely cause. While the FBI takes over the investigation, Jim Chee is assigned the unattractive job of a bodyguard to the mediator. His wife keeps him company and together they solve the mystery in the end by coincidence.

Of course we are glad to hear from Jim Chee, Joe Leaphorn and Bernadette Manuelito again, but it is painful to loyal readers, how these characters are depicted here. Joe Leaphorn just gives a flash appearance at the end of the story and since he is still suffering from his brain injury, he cannot add much of value to the unravelling of the mystery. Jim Chee, one of the protagonists, became a very linear and simple person. There is not much left of the deep thinker and wannabe medicine man in the Navajo policeman. His personality is mostly reduced to become a loving and caring husband. Bernadette Manuelito is the real protagonist of the story and she is portrayed as a tough young woman, torn between her duties as a policewoman and the obligations of Navajo customs and the demands of her family. While this is quite skillfully described, Manuelito is less convincing, when solving crimes or hunting the bad guys, she appears sometimes outright simpleminded or clueless.

It still is an interesting read and the story has some flaws, but loyal readers will forgive them easily.

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