★★★★☆ Hwéeldi relics and burglaries

The Tale Teller

Anne Hillerman

The Tale Teller centers Joe Leaphorn more than any other novel since Anne Hillerman took over the Leaphorn, Chee, and Manuelito series. His recovery from the brain injury he received in Spider Woman's Daughter is proceeding apace. He is now close to fully functional, although he has difficulty speaking English. His business as a private investigator continues, and it is in that capacity that he acts in this novel. He is hired by a museum to track down an item that is apparently missing from a package of anonymous donations. It is a relic from Hwéeldi, the Long Walk of the Navajo.

At the same time, Bernie and Chee investigate a series of burglaries and a murder that appears to be connected. So we see quite a lot of them, too, and they have a interesting mystery to solve.

It's a good, complicated mystery, with deep roots in Navajo history and personal relationships. I enjoyed it. I had some minor issues with the story, which I will describe in a spoiler tag.

My main issues are related to the last sentence of the publisher's blurb

As Leaphorn, Chee, and Bernie draw closer to solving these crimes, their parallel investigations begin to merge . . . and offer an unexpected opportunity that opens a new chapter in Bernie’s life.

Both assertions here are, as far as I can tell, quite false. The two cases are and remain entirely unrelated. I see that as an aesthetic flaw, but only a minor one. Second, I am entirely unable to identify the "unexpected opportunity that opens a new chapter in Bernie’s life." If that happened at all, it flew right past me without my noticing it. Perhaps the next novel, Stargazer, will make it clear what the publicist is talking about.

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