Review: Jim Nighthorse makes my favorite P.I. list
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 01 7, 2013
THE MUMMY CASE is Book #2 in a series, and my introduction to California PI Jim Nighthorse. He takes his place alongside other dream-worthy private eyes.Nighthorse is a football hero, addicted to beer and donuts, in love with an understanding woman named Cindy Darwin. She's a professor at the University of Irvine and a descendant of Charles Darwin, the evolutionist. Nighthorse plans to marry her when he gets out of debt. Despite beer and donuts, he's in great physical shape except for stainless steel pins in his right leg due to an old football injury. Just when I think he's a big oaf he does something so simple, so smart and so calculated I realize he's a born detective. He claims his great-great-grandfather was Apache, so maybe that explains it.The story open on a quiet day while Nighthorse is doing decline push ups at his desk. In walks Jones T. Jones, owner of Ye Olde Curiosity Shoppe in Huntington Beach. His prize exhibit is a famous mummy named Sylvester, after the miner who found him. It happened more than 100 years ago in the Mojave Desert near a ghost town called Rawhide.Jones has hired a young historian named Willie Clarke to look into the mummy's identity but Willie ends up dead from heat and thirst after a trip to Rawhide. Jones doesn't buy an accidental death ruling because "the kid was too smart to get lost in the desert." Jones hires Nighthorse to ID Sylvester and find Willie's killer.Getting the mummy case kick starts the PI business. All at once Nighthorse is working night and day, although seldom for money. He looks up the cop who investigated his mother's murder more than 20 years earlier. He volunteers as assistant coach at his old high school to put the current team in a winning mood. He stalks the religious zealot who trashes Cindy's lecture hall, and helps Sanchez, a cop friend, track the bullies who beat up his 11-year-old son. The kid plans to get revenge, one bully at a time.Meantime, since the retainer from Jones T. Jones is paying his rent, Nighthorse visits the museum for a look at the mummy. This is when I like Nighthorse best. He sees an ugly mummy not as a "thing" but as a murdered man who deserves justice. Peering long and hard at Sylvester, he muses:(Quote)Well, buddy, I think you are more than a freak show curiosity. I think you were once a person, a person who died a hell of a s***ty death. I care that you suffered so much. I care that you bled to death. I care that you never got that last drink of water you so desperately craved. Of course, you didn't leave me much to go on, but that's never stopped me before. But first I have to look into the death of a young historian, who may or may not have died accidentally. Maybe you know him. I hear he was a good kid. His name is Willie Clarke."(End Quote)Nighthorse works the no-pay cases with little sweat but in the mummy case he frays a few nerves, putting himself in harm's way.The author spent a couple of years in Hollywood working for Paramount Pictures and Alphaville Productions. This book reminds me of a screenplay. It takes us through short, alternating chapters--first one problem, then another -- and we're with Nighthorse all the way. I loved it, but I do have one minor complaint -- the ending is a cliff hanger regarding one of his no-pay cases. Other than that, this book starts off my new year on a high note.