Coyote Waits

by Tony Hillerman

Book Overview

The car fire didn't kill Navajo Tribal Policeman Delbert Nez, a bullet did. Officer Jim Chee's good friend Del lies dead, and a whiskey-soaked Navajo shaman is found with the murder weapon. The old man is Ashie Pinto. He's quickly arrested for homicide and defended by a woman Chee could either love or loathe. But when Pinto won't utter a word of confession or denial, Lt. Joe Leaphorn begins an investigation. Soon, Leaphorn and Chee unravel a complex...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060163704
• ISBN13: 9780060163709
• Release Date: January 1990
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Length: 292 Pages
• Weight: 0.78 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.4" x 9.4"

Customer Reviews

A Great Mystery

Coyote Waits is one of Hillerman's best. I have read most of Hillerman's Navajo Mysteries and found this one to be near the top, the prose is simple and elegant, (no wasted words here) the landscapes descriptive and vivid (but not romantic). Coyote Waits is an excellent mystery, not overly complex or mind-numbingly predictable. This is Hillerman at top form and there are few like him.

COYOTE WAITS. IT ALWAYS WAITS!

Tony Hillerman delivers in COYOTE WAITS, another of his Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee mysteries. As usual Hillerman masterfully weaves Navajo traditions, culture and references with modern crime in the Southwest. COYOTE WAITS pits the skills of Leaphorn and Chee against a marauding phantom with a paint can who is out defacing the natural formations of the desert. Doesn't sound like much, does it? Well, it isn't. When a fellow tribal policeman turns up dead while pursuing the painting vandal the plot inevitably thickens. COYOTE WAITS also makes dynamic statements about some of the terrible problems that continue to face Native Americans in the Four Corners area. Hillerman's genius is obvious here. His narrative employs believable characters that confront real-life problems in ways that invite the reader to stop and consider that very real issues are out there and need to be addressed. A great book. THE HORSEMAN

A tragedy, not a mystery

The conclusion of *Coyote Waits* is the most powerful and affecting of all Hillerman's "Navajo mysteries." Leaphorn has his monsters to slay: alcoholism, superstition. They come together here in a complex mystery that begins with Jim Chee botching a crime scene and lead from there through a maze of deception and misdirection. When we emerge into the sunlight, the truth is heartbreaking.For my money, the sentimental best of the series. *A Thief of Time* may be better writing and plotting, and *Skinwalkers* may have the best suspense, but this is the story that will stay with you for days and return to haunt you when you see your next drunken Indian dozing away despair in tenement shade.

Coyote is always waiting...wherever you least expect him

One never knows where evil will come from and that is why one must always be on guard or so it seems when you read Tony Hillermans novel "Coyote Waits". It is the authors message that if you seek to do something of an evil nature Coyote is sure to make a meal out of you.I enjoyed this book. Not until the very last had I suspected that a simpe inoccent act of love could develop into something tragic

Deserving of accolades

Right from the moment where a car fire on a dirt road announces trouble with a capital "T," I enjoyed "Coyote Waits" a lot. Hillerman's pace is measured but not sleep-inducing. It was fascinating to see two policemen work in different ways to solve the same crime. The story would would have been memorable for that reason alone, but Tony Hillerman isn't past president of Mystery Writers of America for nothing. As usual with this author, well-informed asides about Navajo culture and mythology advance the plot and bring characters to life. Thunderheads and Reservation landmarks are described in language as spare and beautiful as the land itself. Even small scenes are expertly drawn. When an old man looks at the floor, we know precisely why. When people talk in a crowded elevator, their words, actions, and feelings have perfect pitch. The end result is not just a mystery, but also a crackerjack police procedural and a poignant meditation on the nature of friendship.