Finding Moon

Moon Mathias's younger brother died in South Vietnam in a helicopter crash. It seemed that his brother Ricky had a daughter. Arrangements were made to send the child from Vietnam to the Philippines. Moon's mother has traveled from Florida to California enroute to the Philippines when she has a heart attack at the airport. Moon is a journalist, the managing editor of a newspaper in Colorado, and as Ricky's only sibling he is called upon to journey in his mother's stead to the Far East. Arriving in Manila Moon learns that the child has not arrived and that things are heating up in Vietnam and Cambodia. In his meeting with the lawyer little is gained. In Manila a woman with a Dutch name finds him. She seeks him out under the impression that he plans to take over his brother's business and would be in a position to help her find her brother, a Lutheran missionary. Eventually Moon, the woman, and a Chinese man seeking the ashes of an ancestor travel to the vicinity of the child's mother's village and amazingly find the child and learn in convincing fashion of the death of the brother. Moon then decides to travel with the child to the United States and to return to Manila in order to be with the woman and to run his brother's business. What has been created in this excellent work is a sort of coming of age story of a middle-aged person. The past has been put to rest and the future beckons. The adventure aspects of the tale are very exciting.

All you need to know is that it is an adventure, not a mystery. The rest is Hillerman's typical brilliant story telling. In fact in this novel Hillerman goes beyond the usual because he weaves in historic events that are usually forgotten about in today's media (ie the real ending of the Vietnam War).

Tony Hillerman has definitely given us his best change-up pitch with Finding Moon. We are not on the reservation. In fact, we travel back in time to the Vietnamese war as one simple man attempts to carry out his Mother's search for the missing niece of her dead, other son.The story recounts twenty-seven days, with a few skipped. Each one leads off with a quote from the news of the time about Vietnam. The story ends on May 2, 1975. The last press quote begins: "Saigon, South Vietnam, April 29 (UPI)- A helicopter shuttle service began evacuating Americans from the roof of the U.S. Embassy today while marine guards kept thousands of desperate Vietnamese from breaking through the gates." Moon has to meet many tough challenges, learn a lot about what he is really made of, and completes the hero's journey in fine fashion. You can see that there is also an element of the Phoenix rising from the ashes, as Moon seeks to preserve life at a time when life is very precarious as the South Vietnamese government falls. You will seldom find an adventure-based mystery that is as rich in characterization and heart-warming plot as this one. There are a lot of asides in the book about the Vietnam war, bureaucratic stalls in particular, and the nature of families that are worth the trip with Moon, as well. It may take you a few pages to get over looking for the Navajo reservation in this novel, but soon you'll never miss it. You'll have an irresistible experience in the process!

I fell in love with Hillerman because of his Chee/Leaphorn novels but I now count Finding Moon as one of Hillerman's best. The plot is interesting, it is well written and evocative, but the best aspect of this novel is the fact that a plain, ordinary man, discovers the extraoridanary individual inside of himself. This book is haunting, uplifting, and powerful.

Hillerman seems to have had a deep need to write Finding Moon--the same way he seems to have HAD to write such books as Dancehall of the Dead or The Dark Wind. And yet its neither a mystery, nor set in the Southwest, and there's not a Navajo in sight. But Hillerman seems to have dedicated it to several fellow soldiers, and says he's used some of them in the book. I think there's a story there, that he's telling somehow in the book--an utterly private story those friends can read and that the rest of us can only guess. There's that great Hillerman ability to describe action in the outdoors (remember how Fly on the Wall came alive in the stalking sequences, outdoors?) And both major and minor characters go through changes and development. How can something so different in setting, character, and plot be so much the same in the feeling it gives you? Because when Hillerman's got the passion, his superb craftsmanship lets it shine through.