The Sinister Pig
A Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee Mystery by Tony Hillerman
Review: The Sinister Pig is the 17th mystery to feature Sergeant Jim Chee of the Navajo Tribal Police and his retired former supervisor Joe Leaphorn.
As a generic mystery, The Sinister Pig is quite good. As a Hillerman mystery, it is rather mediocre. The problem with The Sinister Pig as a Hillerman mystery is that the story could take place anywhere. Substitute Canada for Mexico, Montana for New Mexico, and replace the names of principal characters, and The Sinister Pig remains a believable and fine mystery. But there is nothing of the rich Navajo culture embedded in the story, and that is what makes it an undistinguished Hillerman mystery.
The inefficiency, redundancy, and general level of incompetency of the US Federal Government, especially post-9/11 with the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, and conspicuously with respect to native American tribes, is front and center in this mystery. And Hillerman does an exceptional job incorporating this bureaucracy into his story. The plot he weaves is interesting and absorbing. But the characters, even the familiar Jim Chee and Joe Leaphorn, lack the depth and complexity typically associated with the books in this mystery series.
First-time readers of this series will no doubt find The Sinister Pig to be excellent. Long-time fans of Jim Chee and Joe Leaphorn are likely to be disappointed.
Review Copyright © 2003 — Hidden Staircase Mystery Books — All Rights Reserved
Location(s) referenced in The Sinister Pig: New Mexico
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The Sinister Pig by Tony Hillerman
Publisher: HarperCollins
Format: Hardcover
ISBN-10: 0-06-019443-X
ISBN-13: 978-0-06-019443-7
Publication Date: May 2003
List Price: $25.95
Synopsis (from the publisher): The victim, well dressed but stripped of identification, is found at the edge of the vast Jicarilla Apache natural gas field just inside the jurisdiction of the Navajo Tribal Police, facing Sergeant Jim Chee with a complex puzzle.
Why did the Washington office of the FBI snatch custody of this case from its local agents, cover it with secrecy, and call it a hunting accident? What was the victim seeking among the maze of pipelines and pumping stations in America's largest gas field? Was he investigating the embezzlement of billions of dollars from the Indian tribal royalty trust in the Department of the Interior?
On a level nearer to Chee's heart, did the photographs Bernie Manuelito took on an exotic game ranch near the Mexican border reveal something connected with this crime? Did Bernie, once a member of Chee's squad but now a rookie Border Patrol Officer, put herself in terrible danger?
Tony Hillerman leads his readers through another of his intricate plots to the solution of this crime, with a cast of vivid characters: a Washington political mogul and his more-or-less renegade pilot; a customs official who bends the rules; a Mexican smuggler with a conscience; and, finally, "Legendary Lieutenant" Joe Leaphorn, now retired, who connects the lines on a dusty old map to find the answers - and the Sinister Pig - among the great scimitar-horned oryx grazing on the historic Tuttle Ranch.