The Blessing Way

This is the first book in Tony Hillerman's Navajo mystery series, known to Dark Winds watchers as the Leaphorn, Chee, and Manuelita series but it's just Leaphorn here and some white guy, and it's the basis of the third season of Dark Winds, so already there are differences, though probably still a bit of a spoiler (I haven't finished the third season yet). One thing I didn't realize is how long ago these books were written, which shouldn't be a surprise I guess as the TV show is faithful to the time period, but it shows up in the writing as, in an Ian Fleming novel, women are typically referred to as girls (I gather the author's daughter has taken up the series so already in an excerpt of one of her books it seems that's something that's changed). Aside from that quaintness, the immersion in the Southwestern environment and Navajo culture makes it a page-turner more than the mystery, which is adequate enough for its purposes (reminds me of another old-timey spy writer, Len Deighton, where the settings and characters and their mid-life crises were more interesting than whatever spy thign was happening).