The Sinister Pig

Our favorite characters, Jim Chee, Joe Leaphorn, and Bernadette Manuelito are all present in this short novel, the newest in Hillerman's bestselling series about the Navaho Tribal Police. Chee is called in to solve the murder of a man without identification, found at the edge of the Jicarilla Apache natural gas field, and immediately gets embroiled in a complex case involving American and Mexican drug lords and corrupt federal officers. It won't spoil anything to let you know that the good guys win. While George Guidall's reading is perfectly good, it's not on par with his best performances. He handles Leaphorn and Leaphorn's female housemate, an anthropologist, capably, as well as many of the minor characters. He is less consistent in his characterizations of Chee and Manualito. Still, all in all, a fine listen. R.E.K. (c) AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine

Starred review from April 14, 2003
Bestseller Hillerman's 16th Chee/ Leaphorn adventure offers deeper intrigue and a tighter plot than his previous entry, The Wailing Wind
(2002), in this enduring series. When the body of an undercover agent, who's been looking for clues to the whereabouts of billions of dollars missing from the Tribal Trust Funds, turns up on reservation property near Four Corners, Navajo cop Sgt. Jim Chee and Cowboy Dashee, a Hopi with the Federal Bureau of Land Management, investigate. But the book's real star is officer Bernadette "Bernie" Manuelito, Chee's erstwhile romantic interest, now working in the New Mexico boot heel for the U.S. Border Patrol. The miles have only strengthened her feelings for Chee—and vice versa. A routine patrol puts Bernie on the trail of an operation involving some old oil pipelines that connects to the Four Corners murder. Meanwhile, Joe Leaphorn is checking into the same murder from another direction. The three lines converge on a conspiracy of drugs, greed and power, and those who most profit, including the "sinister pig" of the title, will stop at nothing to keep it a secret. With his usual up-front approach to issues concerning Native Americans such as endlessly overlapping jurisdictions, Hillerman delivers a masterful tale that both entertains and educates. (May 6)Forecast:PBS has announced a second
Mystery! series based on a Hillerman work,
The Thief of Time, the breakout book that made him a bestseller in 1988. His memoir,
Seldom Disappointed (2001), won an Agatha Award. And the 77-year-old author recently signed a new two-book contract. Less flashy than some newer names in the field, Hillerman shows no sign of faltering in popularity.