Skeleton Man ***

*** Skeleton Man, Tony Hillerman, 2004

I'm a Hillerman fan from way back, as can be seen from my original reading lists. Hillerman gets it. He gets the sense of place. He gets the people, as attested by the endorsements he gets from Native American groups. And he gets the story.

All that being said, he's getting on up there in years and is not in the best of health. So we can understand if he's not at the top of his game in the more recent books.

Set that thought aside. Skeleton Man delivers a good solid Jim Chee story. And the Leaphorn sub-plot has some interesting tweaks.

My only critique is that the real begining was Chapter Two. You can lose Chapter One and the story is as good or better. This is a worthy read, but not a good starting point. If you're new to Hillerman, go back to the beginning.