Skeleton Man by Tony Hillerman

The following elements are involved in this book: a severed limb, a diamond heist, a mid-air collision between two airplanes, and a mummified corpse.

Wouldn’t you think at least ONE of those would be exciting on some level?

If you’re human, you would. And Mr. Hillerman would owe you an apology. Probably even an apology involving baked goods. An apolo-cake. An aPielogy. At least that way you would walk away with SOMETHING.

There were two female characters in this book that I didn’t even realize were separate characters until about halfway through. This is not a good thing. If you’re on a date with someone and only halfway through do you realize that the person you picked up earlier in the evening is not the person you are currently sharing movie popcorn with, I would question how well the date was going. You should immediately end this date. And probably make some hospital appointments.

Maybe it’s me, maybe it’s my natural distaste for mysteries. It’s not that I’ve read a lot of them, but the idea of surprise, in general, is very unappealing to me. I don’t care about surprise parties, I don’t care if I know what I’m eating for dinner, and I always snooped around the house and found my Christmas gifts early. Which is a really good thing because sometimes your mom gets you a guitar, and sometimes you see it and say, “Oh shit!” because you asked for a guitar months ago, but now you REALLY don’t want a guitar because you know you’re going to suck at it. So thank god you looked around in her bedroom before Christmas morning because at least now you can put on a brave face.

Mystery and surprise are overrated, in my opinion. And some of the best things in life don’t have mystery in them. I like pizza. I know I like pizza. No mystery there, yet time and again I order pizza. Sex. There can be some level of mystery there, but rarely is there a twist ending, and usually when there is someone is really unhappy about it and spends the evening with an ice pack.

The other problem is that I’m supposed to discuss this with a book club tomorrow. What the hell am I going to say? I have a couple potential ideas:

“Hey, wasn’t that a neat book?”
“I didn’t think that book was so neat? What about you?”
“That cover sure is neat.”

I really can’t think of one good reason to read this book. I mean, come on. A severed arm! And nothing!? If you can’t make something happen with a severed arm, you have no business on my bookshelves