Free Download | A Thief of Time | Tony Hillerman

In "A Thief of Time", Tony Hillerman describes the Desert Southwest, especially the landscapes of the Colorado Plateau, marvelously. His two Navajo detectives are defined very well; Hillerman makes sure that the two men are not stereotypes of each other, but have separate ambitions, challenges, beliefs, and experience. They are not drawn to each other because they happen to be Navajo, but because the cases they are each working on just happen to coincide. 

And just because they are Navajo, they don't automatically take up each other's cause, but are drawn into the mystery for different reasons. I found this to be very authentic and very refreshing, as I also found the way Hillerman describes their processes for solving crimes, with a lot of shoe leather and inductive reasoning.

But these two strong characters could not compensate for the weakness in the rest of the characters, for a crime that is underdeveloped, and for an ending that is anticlimactic. Hillerman explores many issues that are pertinent to the Desert Southwest and to Native culture, but he doesn't set these issues into context well enough to fully educate the reader or provide an emotional conclusion.