Book Review: Talking God by Tony Hillerman (Leaphorn and Chee #9)

Stars: 3 out of 5

Pros: Great climax; the two leads

Cons: Takes too long for the stories to merge; Chee’s love life still

The Bottom Line:

Separate cases

Too long to come together

Skip unless a fan

Weak Plot Didn’t Quite Work for Me

Every author has a book or two that doesn’t quite work the way they think it will.  For me, that was the case with Talking God, the ninth mystery from Tony Hillerman.

This series usually focuses on the Navajo reservation in the Southwest.  It features Navajo Tribal Police Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn and Officer Jim Chee.  This particular book kicks off with Leaphorn being asked to help with a dead body that was found near the train tracks just outside the reservation.  While he is only asked to help find any evidence around the body, he can’t help but work more on the case when no one can come up with the identity of the victim.

Meanwhile, Chee is asked to arrest Henry Highhawk for desecration of a grave and then fleeing across state lines.  It should have been as simple as arresting Henry at the ceremony where he shows up.  But Chee feels something else is going on.  Is he right?

There are a couple of issues I had with this book.  The first is that we, the reader, have enough clues to know the two cases are going to intersect at some point.  (Besides the fact that they are in the same book.)  But, since neither Leaphorn or Chee regularly talk to each other, they don’t make those connections until late in the book.  As a result, I grew restless waiting for the storylines to intersect.

Also, a good portion of the story takes place in Washington DC.  Like when an earlier book took us to Los Angeles, it doesn’t quite work for me.  The reservation is a big character in the series, and I miss it when we aren’t there.  It also stretched credibility when both cases take the characters to DC separately for an interconnected story.

Having said that, once the stories come together, we get a great climax.  I was fully on board for that.

I’m also very tired of what we’ve seen of Chee’s romantic life in the series so far.  A storyline that should have been finished a couple of books ago is still dragging on with nothing new added to it.  I’m hoping that things are really finally over there.

Having said that, I do like Leaphorn and Chee and the different perspectives they bring to the cases they get involved in.  There are other interesting characters here as well.  Even if the entire book isn’t set on the reservation, I enjoyed the look at Navajo culture we got here.

I also found it odd that the audio for this book was narrated by Christian Baskous.  I’ve no idea why the narrator changed, especially since we are back to George Guidall for the next one.

Talking God is not the book with which to start this series.  But fans will still be interested in what happens here.

Do check out the rest of the Leaphorn and Chee Mysteries.