Review:- Tony HILLERMAN – “Dance Hall of the Dead”

Year Published: - 1973
Where the book was from:- My own copy
ISBN: - -
Pages: - 255pp
Genre: - Crime
Location:- Navajo Tribal Lands, USA
How I came across it: - Gift from Carol
Rating: - ***** ***
One sentence summary:- Joe Leaphorn of the Navajo Tribal Police tracks the brutal killer of a young boy of the Zuni while, at the same time, a young Navajo disappears.

Describe the plot without giving anything away:- 
Joe is one of six different agencies involved in solving this crime which may, or may not, have been committed by the missing Navajo boy.

General comments:-
I found this less complex a background than The Blessing Way. As a result the interest about the Navajo and Zuni cultures was more easily understood and fascinating. As a thriller it was good but it is the style of writing and the Native American background that make this so readable.

Quotations:
‘Leaphorn came from the Taadii Dinee, the Slow-Talking People Clan. The fathjer of his mother was Nashibitti, a great singer of the Beutyway and the Mountainway, and the other curing rites, and a man so wise that it was said the people of Beautiful Mesa added Hosteen to his name when he was less than thirty – calling him Old Man when he was far too young to be a grandfather....’


‘A boy had been killed without reason. Leaphorn’s rational mind would not accept this. Not even the grasshopper took wing without reason.

AUTHOR Notes:- Tony HILLERMAN see The Blessing Way