GoodReads meta-data is 336 pages and rated 3.97 by 6972 litizens.
Genre: krimi.
Verdict: Gripping.
In 1956 two airliners in the wild blue yonder ran into each other over the Colorado River and bodies, luggage, and debris rained down into the Grand Canyon. A hundred seventy passengers on the two flights were killed along with the planes’ crews. It took weeks to recover the body (parts) and the larger pieces debris. But not everything was found. This did indeed happen as per the link below.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1956_Grand_Canyon_mid-air_collision
Thirty years later and a legal dispute about inheritance from one of those killed is reaching a Jarndyce and Jarndyce conclusion. Not only was this man carrying an attaché case full of diamonds to New York City, he was also the last scion of a wealthy father, the kind of family that owns cases full of diamonds. A shady lawyer has been exploiting the inheritance while the judicial wheels ground but there is a claimant who hopes to use DNA to prove her assertion by finding the body of her putative father, the courier with the diamonds, who was also the heir to a fortune since directed to the foundation the lawyer controls to his own satisfaction. This lawyer hires an unscrupulous investigator to go the Grand Canyon country and head off the claimant’s efforts by any means.
None of that is very interesting. What is interesting the geomorphology of the Grand Canyon which becomes a moving force in this story, along with the Hopi Indians who live along the banks of the Little Colorado River at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. One of the Hopis is the Skeleton Man (or so I thought).
The plot has more convolutions than I needed and the backstories to thirty years before were confusing to this casual reader at bedtime, but Jim Chee and Bernie Manuelito carry the story when Jim’s friend and law enforcement colleague Cowboy Dashee asks for his help in tracking down an errant relative. It is all done with such delicacy. Dashee does not ask Jim for help but explains what he is going (to have to do) to find this cousin of his who has done something stupid. It is dangerous and not really a search one man alone can effect, but… well, he has to try. Jim realises this explanation is an appeal for help, though the task will be arduous and there is some danger (less if the two work together), Dashee has done him many good turns in the past, so he volunteers, and, of course, where he goes Bernie has to follow, wanted or not.
So the three of them descend into the Grand Canyon’s where they meet its inhabitants and also some interlopers after both the diamonds and the DNA specimen represented by the bones they may find. They have some clues that have recently come to light that lead them to a location…. In the end despite the bad will and guns of the villains, the Grand Canyon prevails and washes away the human stain.
I grew unsure about who the titular Skeleton Man was at the end. There are three possibilities: the elderly Hopi shaman, the courier whose ulna remains, or the male villain. Reader let me know what you conclude.
This is the 17th title in the series, believe it or not, and it glows with Hillerman’s skill in place, character, and plot. It all done to Indian-time, no one is in a hurry but it all gets done.