The tension between the Navajo way-of-life and the tempting white-world outside—always an element in Hillerman's somber outings for Jim Chee of the Navajo Tribal Police—is central and emphatic in this haunting, absorbing investigation. Throughout the novel, Jim broods (sometimes too ponderously) on his relationship with non-Navajo teacher Mary Landon, who has been pressuring him to take a job outside the reservation. But, more effectively, the crime-puzzles here relentlessly circle around the issue of Navajo identity. Albert Gorman, a Navajo who moved to L.A. and became a car-thief, returns to the reservation, apparently looking for his brother Leroy—and is wounded in a shootout with a pursuing L.A. hitman. Soon thereafter, Albert's body is found—ceremonially laid out—near the hogan of his grandfather, Hosteen Begay. But where is Hosteen Begay now? Where is brother Leroy? And where is young Margaret Billy Sosi, another of Hosteen Begay's grandchildren, who has disappeared from her Navajo school? To answer these questions, Jim makes a rare trip outside the reservation—to LA., where he learns that the Gorman brothers were involved with a powerful local gang, that Leroy had agreed to testify against the gang-leaders, becoming a federally protected witness. He finds Margaret Billy Sosi, then loses her again (after she saves him from a gang assassin); he has touching encounters with an elderly friend of the late Albert Gorman, with some of the few Navajos living in L.A. And finally, after returning home and finding the body of Hosteen Begay, Jim brings all the clues and themes together in a strong final twist—one that also helps him to accept a gentle compromise from Mary Landon. Despite pockets of excess sentimentality: one of Hillerman's best Navajo mysteries—keeping suspense, Indian lore, and character in stately yet compelling balance.
Pub Date: Feb. 13, 1984
ISBN: 0061967785
Page Count: 319
Publisher: Harper & Row
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1984
Tudor came out swinging with Chalk Man (2018), but this one puts her firmly on the map. Not to be missed.
When Joe Thorne takes a teaching job in the small English village of his youth, he soon realizes the darkness he's tried to forget certainly hasn’t forgotten him.
Returning to the tiny mining village of Arnhill wasn’t English teacher Joe Thorne’s first choice, and teaching at Arnhill Academy, which he attended as a boy, is the furthest thing from a dream job. But his choices are limited. A gambling problem has put him in debt to a man who will break his kneecaps, or worse, if he doesn’t get his money. Well, actually, he has a frightening woman named Gloria on hand to do that for him, and she’s got her eye on Joe. But Joe has a plan. He moves into a cottage where an Arnhill teacher recently killed her young son and then herself, writing “NOT MY SON” in blood on the wall. But beggars can’t be choosers, and Joe tries to settle in at Arnhill, where it’s soon obvious that his old foes never left, and they don’t want him in their village. Stephen Hurst, a bully Joe ran with as a kid, has a hold on the town, and his son Jeremy, an Arnhill student, is a chip off the old block. Unfortunately, Stephen shares a secret with Joe that involves Joe’s beloved sister, Annie, who disappeared when she was 8 and was very different when she returned. The events leading up to her death soon after were very strange indeed, and everything leads back to a mine shaft that is the source of ghost stories and rumors that have persisted for hundreds of years. The past and present are about to collide in chilling fashion. With Joe, Tudor avoids going the way of the unreliable narrator: He doesn’t lie to readers, even if he lies to others, and he has a snarky sense of humor that adds levity. Tudor maintains a tone of creeping dread throughout the book, of something lingering always in the background, coyly hiding its face while whispering promises of very bad things to come. In the last quarter, however, she goes for broke with outright horror, giving readers an effective jolt of adrenaline that will carry them all the way to the terrifying conclusion. Readers won’t know what hit them.
Tudor came out swinging with Chalk Man (2018), but this one puts her firmly on the map. Not to be missed.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5247-6101-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 12, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2018
You have seven days to live after reading this review. Is that your phone ringing?
First in a trilogy by a newcomer publishing house that promises high-class works from Japan.
Ring has sold three million copies in its native country, says Vertical, been filmed there, and the film remade here as a postmodern horror mystery released by DreamWorks as The Ring. In one month in 1990, four Japanese students who live fairly near each other die mysteriously of heart failure. Tomoko Oishi dies in the family kitchen, Shuichi Iwata on his motorcycle while waiting for the light to change at an intersection, and Haruko Tsuji and Takehiko Nomi in the front seat of a car while undressing for sexplay. All four have faces constricted with horror and seem to be pulling their heads off or blinding their vision. Tomoko happens to be the niece of Kazuyuki Asakawa, a journalist, who links all the deaths and sees a story in it. Japanese journalism has been through a heavy period of occult reports, and Asakawa’s editor only hopes it has all died down. A card Asakawa finds in Tomoko’s desk leads him to discover that all four victims had watched a video tape they’d been warned against viewing—a tape, as it happens, that’s something of a virus (in Asakawa, its horrific images cause sweat and shortness of breath). Then comes the message: Those who view these images are fated to die at this exact moment one week from now. If you do not wish to die, you must follow these instructions exactly . . . . Then the phone rings (hence Ring) and unspeakable bugs invade Asakawa until he slams down the receiver. Too late, though: he has a week to live. He brings in brainy Ruiji to help him, and Ruiji watches the tape. This stifling sense—is it an evil energy? Then Asakawa’s wife and daughter watch it . . . .
You have seven days to live after reading this review. Is that your phone ringing?Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 1-932234-00-4
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Vertical
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2003
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
