Review: Plodding and Implausible
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 10 1, 2012
Superficially, this is a police procedural set on an Indian Reservation and told in the first person. For this reader, the plot was slow to develop. For example, by the halfway mark, the protagonist has somehow  magically intuited the identity of the criminal so from there, it was just a slog to get the plot resolved. Since it was told in the first person, the outcome wasn't even in slight doubt.The high points of the book are descriptions of the Sonoran Desert of AZ and the hardships experienced both by the (as the book puts it) the 'wets' and the border agents who are in constant mild battle. It also illustrates how difficult life must be for the citizens who are trying to live normal lives inside the borders of this battleground.The downsides are more numerous. The protagonist's actions are incomprehensible and unbelievable. He guesses or deduces time and time again the correct solution to a situation making him a super brain. He is also a super sleuth in the sense that he, who had never been in the area before, can out track and out detect hidden sites in this desert well ahead of the anglo police and even the natives who make their home on that reservation.The author uses specifics over and over sometime getting them wrong which is constantly distracting. For example, he has one character with a .357 magnum automatic. While there was one of these, it's a rare item and hardly expected to be in routine police use. He also uses the terms I-86 and I-85 for roads. Routes 85 and 86 in this area are not Interstates. They aren't even close.Further the protagonist spends about 20% of the novel whining about the heat as well as the flora and fauna of the area. Gosh, it's the Sonoran Desert - what did you expect - Seattle or Vancouver? In the end, the novel wraps up with an obvious and needed (remember first person) conclusion with one interesting twist which itself is utterly implausible.Good for painting the plight of the locals, the 'wets' and the border patrol. Not so good as a procedural.