Most helpful customer reviews
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5.0 out of 5 stars
"He stirs, he stirs, he stirs, he stirs,", Jul 9 2004
"Among the lands of dawning, he stirs, he stirs.
The pollen of dawning, he stirs, he stirs.
Now in old age wandering, he stirs, he stirs.
Now on the trail of beauty, he stirs,
Talking God, he stirs..."It is in the 1970's pre-cell phone where parallel lives take place. We have an Indian wanted for a stabbing who turns up dead. Not just dead but in the wrong place. Not the wrong place but in a mysterious way. There is also a team of archeologists looking into which craft (they just may find it). One archeologist seems to be missing. A strange Navaho has his hat stolen but the silver hat band left. A woman is coming to visit her fiancé is in for an adventure she did not count on. From all of this Joe Leaphorn must make some sort of sense. It is the descriptiveness of Tony Hillerman that goes beyond the mystery to pant a picture of a different world that we get to glimpse in the process of reading. Read the book but the addition of the voice of George Guidall ads a dimension to the story by helping visualize the people and correcting pronunciation of certain words. I suggest you read the book and listen to the recorded version.
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3.0 out of 5 stars
Some technical difficulties, May 10 2004
A friend just introduced me to Tony Hillerman, and I'm excited to get started. The first book I started was The Blessing Way. Unfortunately, I was disappointed in the first few pages to find that Horseman was baiting his kangaroo rat deadfall traps with meat, as kangaroo rats eat seeds. This made me question the validity of some of his other research, but as I've heard great things about him, I look forward to reading his other books, and will not give up yet.
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3.0 out of 5 stars
Somewhat weak mystery offset by illuminating Navaho culture, Nov 13 2003
We were lucky to glom onto Hillerman's first book as our introduction to his graphic depictions of Navaho life and geography. Set in the mesas and desert lands of New Mexico and Arizona (and a bit of Utah), we agree with the many reviewers who react to much of his stories as though they were travelogues. Indeed, the author's descriptions of the scenery and his illumination of this Native American culture were entertaining and informative, while reportedly extremely accurate and well informed.His mystery writing skills, at least in 1970 when this novel was first published, seem a little tame by comparison. The murder of Luis Horseman gets the plot going, but the investigative role of the central character, Lt. Joe Leaphorn, of the Navaho Tribal Police, is frequently overshadowed by college professor Bergen McKee. McKee, engaged by a search for rumored witchcraft, more or less stumbles onto the likely bad guys "whodunit". His manly actions to protect a female companion and escape armed captivity are a little tough to believe. Moreover, the late chapter appearance by Leaphorn, to just wrap up everything with the tidiest possible ribbons, left us feeling a little shallow about the book's craft and cohesiveness. Hillerman has a loyal following and has published over a dozen of these stories to date. While his settings create their own interest, it is not likely his plots are as complex as more current modern writers might typify. We expect Hillerman's work will either tend to please or disappoint -- but the domination of Southwestern imagery and culture should allow most readers to make an informed choice.
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