Iain > Recent Status Updates

40% and not that into it. Leaphorn back as worried husband and eccentric cop (for being competent mostly). Chee as the young jerk who can't do his job and cooperate even when it's to his own benefit. Long time since it felt like we got closer to answering anything. No reason not to still think my guess at the beginning was correct.

Some ok but kind of perfunctory and surprise low stakes stories, and then a pretty bad annual. But meh, it's ok.

The nerfing of Jim Chee. We've had three books of Jim working through mysteries mostly on his own, and while his record of actually resolving them himself wasn't great, there was a sense that it was due to difficult circumstances more than incompetence. Now Leaphorn's back and described as a "hotshot," and Chee is the dumb and kind of petulant officer who doesn't share info that's finally a link between cases.

At last Leaphorn and Chee have met.

Don't know if this will prove to be a spoiler but at 15% in it looks like the ambitious doctor/spiritual diagnostician is using the influence of his position to weaponize the superstitions of his patients and send them after his enemies. He's put a hit-by-witchhunt on Chee.

Gosh this is pretty bad... And Superman really was kind of a dick.

Finished Ego. Love the vintage setting, reminiscent of TAS, but the story didn't stand out to me. A mental struggle between the aspects of his personality, going over the usual talking points. Interesting art, nice setting, dull story, slow pacing.

Off to a scary start... both for the violence and the promised return of Mary.

"That was the sensible sort of thing Margaret Billy Sosi could be expected to do." Darn straight. Margaret the real hero of this story.

"It occurred to Chee . . . that if things went bad here—as they seemed likely to—it was purely because of Jim Chee's stupidity." Yep. I was thinking at the time, what is he doing inviting extra complication into a delicate and dangerous situation with so many unknowns remaining? It seemed stupid, and it ended up being stupider than stupid, which is annoying. Our protagonist's senselessness is creating the problems.

Getting sad. Still that feeling of Margaret Sosi as sequel to George Bowlegs, chasing there and back, catching only a glimpse, finding only tragedy.

This is certainly the fastest I've ever gotten through one of these. Can't escape the feeling of an echo in these stories lately. Another variation on the hitman. Another chase of a kid on the run, to find before someone else does. The parallel of chasing to LA and back, and chasing to the lake of the dead and back.

The adventure begins.

Gosh darn, Margaret Sosi. I don't like where this is going, but credit where it's due, tough girl. The feel of this being a bit of a redo of PoD remains, with the killer being more fleshed out, but same ocd vibe, with father issues in place of mother issues. Scary though.

Learning interesting background the 1-3-7-9 ring pyramid scheme.

While this does feel like an echo of two books ago, with this focus on the stereotypical cold and calculating killer again, I have to admit I'm actually finding this round of it interesting. In a way, this almost feels like an attempt to redo the same trope better, with more depth to the character. I said in my PoD review that we needed to know more or less about the killer, and this one we're getting insight into.

An expensive, methodical, very competent and threatening hitman with a taste for classical music and reading. It's a little jarring how much this feels like People of Darkness, rehashing a formula that I said was worryingly tired the first time around. If this becomes another story of Chee being hunted by a super killer this is going to become difficult to get through.