Tony Hillerman
Enjoying my brief freedom to read for pleasure, I decided to read a couple of Tony Hillermans, starting with Coyote Waits. I've been reading Hillerman in order, and mostly finding out that I'd forgotten that I'd already read the early ones. And finding out that all I remembered were scenes of Navajo life, and not the plots.
So I started this one, the tenth in the Navajo series, thinking I'd probably already read it. Our copy is badly worn. And the first two or three scenes were absolutely familiar. And then it wasn't, and it kept not being familiar, and now I'm convinced that I must have started this one, and then stopped. Which means this is probably the book that my mother-in-law saw with my marker in it -- almost 20 years ago now, on one of her visits -- and promptly commandeered. It took just two mother-in-law visits for my wife and I to discover that the only books she was interested in, from all the hundreds in our combined libraries, were the ones that we were reading right then. The ones lying out on tables, with markers in them.
And after that second visit, whenever she came we hid the books we were currently reading in drawers, in our bedroom; and then put books we'd already read out instead. Put bookmarks in them, halfway through, too. Did this work? Sure did.
Anyway, this is good, solid Hillerman. If you like him you'll like it; if not, not. It's a bit light on Navajo culture, but fine on police procedural. It's a Chee & Leaphorn book, and starts with Chee screwing up. Heroically, but badly. He hears the broken-up radio call of a colleague, saying that he may be making an arrest, and rather than go to help, Chee goes to their planned rendezvous point instead. By the time he rethinks that, it's too late. He finds the policeman shot, in a burning car, and the rest would be spoiler.
So next it's Sacred Clowns, and I probably already read that one too.
CBsIP: House Where a Woman, Lori Wilson
The Chess Garden, Brooks Hansen
Dancing Naked, William Tenn
The Year's Best Science Fiction, Seventeenth Annual Collection, Gardner Dozois, ed.
The Seven Military Classics of Ancient China, Ralph D. Sawyer
The Anchor Book of Modern Arabic Fiction, Denys Johnson-Davies, ed.
Crimea 1854-56, The War with Russia from Contemporary Photographs, Lawrence James
The War: from the Landing at Gallipoli to the Death of Lord Raglan, W. H. Russell