Iain > Recent Status Updates

Realized while reading it that I'm enjoying this one and glad I'm not even at the halfway point! The last one felt a little repetitive and like we spent 75% of the book knowing where it was going while the story progressed like we weren't supposed to. This one stays more focused on Chee, takes us to interesting places (Hopi mesas), and feels more adult mystery, less YA adventure. Reminds of Dance Hall a little!

If Chee thinks the feds drove up the wash and only stopped briefly at tributaries, how would their tracks not be visible when he went to track the hidden vehicle? Does he *not* truly think they did that then? He knows they didn't, and that's the point? He knows they're the ones who did the hiding maybe? And again, is Cowboy Dashee involved?

For the second book in a row, what is with Chee and driving into dangerous remote areas and leaving all his weapons locked in his truck! Only to encounter danger and have to worry about how to safely get back to the truck! After everything he went through being hunted in the last book, he still sleeps out in the desert with his pistol locked in the glove box? I sure wouldn't.

So the lawyer is one of the bad guys. The trading post magician makes me suspicious: why is he a magician, what does that represent as far as his role in this? Is Cowboy involved in some way too, since he's featured so heavily and presented as such a friend?

This has a jarring farcical quality. This seris always has an element of critique, but this one opened with ridiculous behavior, and now it's returning to it in a way that I'm coming to understand as farce and comedic caricature. Which is a poor fit, and no wonder this book is regarded as a notably weak installment.

So... the DEA is behind it then? Maybe I'm getting ahead of things due to the way the last book seemed to force answers on us early and pretend like it wasn't, but it sure seems like we're being setup for a reveal that the feds are behind the goings-on to cover up some covert scheme.

Glad to get back to Smiley working in England for a bit.

Night in the desert. Reminding me of the first books a little.

Craw is just so intensely unpleasant.

This is setting up to be a darker and creepier one, along the lines of the first book in places.

Things are wrapping up quickly now.

Finished chapter 1! It's becoming quite a page-turner; I made a clean stop for now but actually wanted to keep going. Getting an inkling that my problem is Bilbo. Hobbit felt like I was supposed to like him, though I was never given much reason to. LotR begins by addressing it, emphasizing his general unlikableness, and then clearing him from the story to be replaced by Frodo, who already feels more appealing. Good!

Finally returning to this, inspired by an ig post. Really hoping to meet some likable characters soon.

They've revealed what we all knew all along, and still they're presenting it between the main characters like "now you've lost me, how do you figure that?" He figures it cuz it's been dead obvious for the last 20 chapter. But the reveal of who did what how and how it ties into Navajo worldview did surprise me a little.

I feel terrible for only reading a little on Edward's birthdays in recent years.

Been away a long time, but it's time to wrap this story up.

Getting a little frustrating. Various people died in improbably coincidental ways. It seems like they have a shared cause. That cause is central to the mystery at hand, yet the more clues we get the more it points to what this seemed to be about in the opening chapters. Like, spoiler, how many times do we need it emphasized that the rocks encountered are heavy? The rocks that came from the uranium mine guy?