The Sinister Pig [Mass Market Paperback]

This time, Hillerman takes us off the Navajo Reservation to move down to the Mexican border to investigate an unusual "suicide." An unidentified man is found murdered yet in only a few days, the FBI (and others) become most interested. This arouses the suspicions of Chee and Leaphorn (who are never ones to trust Big Government "investigations") and before long, we find this "casual shooting death" becomes a many-headed monster, involving the illegal drug trade, smuggling of undocumented aliens across the border, and a massive cover-up of an oil royalty scam dating back into the last century.

As always, Hillerman's notice of detail, his command of the storyline, his inimitable characters, and his absorbing outcomes make "The Sinister Pig" a fast-paced read.

Hillerman's action takes place almost entirely off the Reservation. The complicated web he has woven involves primarily the drug trade, massive fraud by oil and gas organizations, and the smuggling of illegal aliens across the Mexican border. Hillerman has chosen to take his socially significant themes to a much broader horizon and readers may feel they're reading from a daily newspaper (lately described as "America's newest fiction form!") editorial page. Still, the issues he present couldn't be more relevant.

Granted, he takes care of his established characters. The Legendary Joe Leaphorn contributes heavily and Jim Chee faces a complicated and complex set of personal struggles: his relationship with Bernie, his responsibility to his native culture, and his loyalty to his job. Hillerman has no problem with any of this, yet "The Sinister Pig" seems to move at a pace unusually fast for the author. This book seems to concentrate on action rather than devote much time to personal philosophy and Navajo culture. Nonetheless, Hillerman has another winner.

Because this book relies so much on past character development to establish its story, it would be a major mistake to make this the first book you read in the series. If you start with this book, the big mystery will be finding out who all of the people are and why the story involves them. I think this is one of those series where you really should start at the beginning and work on from there.

This story is told from the perspective of several different characters, none of whom know everything that is going on. As the reader, you are privy to more of their thoughts and knowledge than any of them have which helps you anticipate what will happen next. Yet, until near the end, the ultimate meanings of the book's title will be hidden from you. It's a nice job of misdirection and a gradual, tasty unpeeling of the story grape.

Neither Jim Chee nor Joe Leaphorn are the center of this story, although they play major roles. This is Bernie Manuelito's story although she doesn't appear in the book's opening. She has left some of her frustrations with Jim Chee and the Navajo Tribal Police to join the U.S. Customs Border Patrol near the border of Arizona and New Mexico. This takes her 200 miles from the reservation, and she's lonely despite making friends there. She alternates pining for Jim and being annoyed by his seeming aloofness in letters. He misses her desperately, but cannot bring himself to do anything about it. Bernie finds her new job emotionally and physically challenging because it involves both stopping illegal immigrants who may be in trouble after being abandoned by the coyote guides who lead them and dangerous drug smugglers who will stop at nothing to get their valuable, illegal cargoes through.

In the background to the story are a mysterious investigation of misappropriation of billions in royalties due to Tribal Trust Funds from oil and gas sales, an unexplained death which the FBI hushes up, a Washington power broker who desperately wants the war on drugs to continue, former CIA agents and operatives, blackmail, a missing mistress, an exotic game ranch, an investigative reporter, and unexplained construction in the middle of nowhere.

The book's only flaw is that the villain is portrayed in terms that are a little too extreme to be credible. He's more like a James Bond foe than a Tony Hillerman criminal.

The overall theme of this book is about how our misperceptions of what is going on are likely to lead us astray. These misperceptions may be based on differences in language and culture, knowing only parts of the facts, having facts be withheld from us, or by assuming what others tell us is true when it is not. Mr. Hillerman does a masterful job of portraying all of these problems, and showing that it is important that we act on our desire to know more . . . rather than being satisfied with what appears to be going on at the surface. Better solutions are at hand, if only we grasp them.

After you finish this fine book, I suggest that you think about where you may be misperceiving the potential around you. How can you test the accuracy and completeness of those perceptions where it's important?