Skeleton Man

A Leaphorn and Chee Novel, Book 17

By: Tony Hillerman

Narrated by: George Guidall

Length: 6 hrs and 28 mins

Publisher's summary

Don’t miss the TV series, Dark Winds, based on the Leaphorn, Chee, & Manuelito novels, now on AMC and AMC+!

“In his masterly reworking of this powerful myth, Hillerman creates a kachina for contemporary times. . . . No wonder Hillerman’s stories never grow old. Like myths, they keep evolving with the telling.”— New York Times Book Review

From the enduring "national and literary cultural sensation" (Los Angeles Times) Tony Hillerman, a crackling tale of myth, mystery, and murder featuring the legendary Leaphorn and Chee.

Though he may be retired, Navajo Tribal Police Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn hasn’t lost his curiosity or his edge. He’s eager to help Sergeant Jim Chee and his fiancée Bernie Manuelito with their latest case—clearing an innocent kid accused of robbing a trading post.

Billy Tuve claims he received the precious diamond from a strange old man in the canyon. Could it be one of the gems that went missing in an epic plane crash decades earlier? Now that it may have resurfaced, it’s attracted dangerous strangers to the Navajo lands.

Proving Billy’s innocence won’t be easy. Leaphorn, Chee, and Manuelito must find the remains of a passenger who died in the crash—one of 172 lost souls whose remains were scattered across the magnificent tiered cliffs of the Grand Canyon.

But nature may prove their deadliest adversary. To find the proof they need, the detectives must battle a thunderous monsoon and a killer as they plunge deeper into the dark realm of the Hopi Lord of Death—the guardian of the underworld known as Skeleton Man.

©2009 Tony Hillerman (P)2022 HarperCollins Publishers

Wonderful Audio Story!

Wonderful Audio Story! Love Bernie the Best! Can't wait to listen to the next book!

Great continuation of the story

The ongoing story and character development of the great chee, manulito, and leaphorn as usual. A good listen.

good as uaual...

Loved the book. interesting Hopi and Navajo cultural history included. Walk in Beauty, hozhon!

Chee and Leaphorn go ahead

Wonderful narrative and narration. I can almost see the beauty. And the plot fits in perfectly with each character's world view.

Navajo culture

I am part Navajo. Born in Gallup, NM. I was not raise or taught any of the native ways. So I love reading all of Tony’s books.

A great listen

George Guidel has done it again. Loved it. Excellent narration, story wrapped up nicely. Love a happy ending.

Good story

I enjoyed the story very much. The only flaw was the brevity. Other wise excellent.

Very Good Series Entry

All the usual suspects show up at one point or another, the plot is interesting and relatively believable, and there's some good character development.

The only real flaw is that, with so many characters, this short book feels a bit more scattered than some other entries.

A series remains compelling; a wonderful narration

While not the very best volume in this series of novels—I would vote for “A Thief of Time”—the Leaphorn/Chee novels remained very strong throughout, in fact became better as the characters continued to develop—and (almost) naturally age.

The narration is a perfect match, sometimes even stronger than the story, but makes it difficult to listen to listen to any entries in the series not narrated by George Guidall—who seems to have been born for this role.

Enjoyed

A simple but fun tale about diamonds that fell from the sky. I liked the playful discussions of the differences between Hopi and Navaho customs.
The ending for Bernie and Chi was perfect.