Johnny Ortiz #01 - Murder in the Walls

Richard Martin Stern (1915-2001) won the Edgar Award for Best First Novel for his novel The Bright Road to Fear. His most notable novel is the 1973 disaster-fiction work The Tower, which was adapted into the blockbuster film The Towering Inferno. While Stern drifted towards disaster-fiction later in his career, he did develop and author a series of detective novels starring a half-Apache policeman named Johnny Ortiz. The six-book series ran from 1971 through 1990. I'm starting with the debut, Murder in the Walls. 

As I wrote in my introduction to the Brash Books introduction of Dakota, a newer version of the 1975 Pinnacle novel authored by former screenwriter Gilbert Ralston, the success of Tony Hillerman's 1970 book The Blessing Way, featuring Navajo tribal police, may have kick started a sub-genre of the police-procedural. After the publication, Brian Garfield authored two novels starring a Navajo police officer and there was aforementioned Dakota series featuring a Piegan/Shoshoni as a licensed private-eye. So, it makes sense that Stern may have capitalized on the Hillerman success by writing his own Native American police-procedurals.

Johnny Ortiz is a thirty-year old police lieutenant working in a small northern New Mexico town called Santo Cristo. His father was half-Anglo and half-Spanish and his mother was Apache. He was educated on a reservation school and attended State University. He speaks Apache Athabascan, Spanish, and English and it is mentioned that he fought in a war, which I deducted to be America's involvement in the Vietnam War. 

The series debut, Murder in the Walls, has Ortiz investigating the murder of a prostitute. Simultaneously, he is also investigating the murder of a Mexican man. Considering this little place doesn't experience many murders, Ortiz is thinking the two must be related. The investigation then digs into the history of both victims and how they tie into illegal art trafficking (the tension!) across the border. There isn't much action, although Ortiz does show off his ability to track men. Mainly the novel is two storylines that feature the main character dating an African-American anthropologist (she helps on cases) and the city bureaucracy determining the placement of a new highway through the town. Not exactly white-knuckle stuff here. 

For the most part, Johnny Ortiz is really boring. Stern doesn't help his case by providing readers very little history of the character. Aside from the description in this review there just isn't anything else to go off of. Are there other police in the city? Is he the only lawman? There isn't any mention of other police officers assisting in the investigation nor does Ortiz report to anyone. Further, he doesn't have a lot of personality, instead he just says “chica” a lot and shows off extremely white teeth. 

Ortiz's investigation also asks some really silly questions. Like, this prostitute is found with a broken neck. Yet, Ortiz asks the medical examiner if the attack was possibly inflicted by Karate. Or, he is an excellent tracker and lives in New Mexico but when his girlfriend makes mention of a type of lava rock he doesn't know what it is. Yet, the rock is everywhere in town. I know. I know. I'm grumbling over small things. But, considering the lack of action it puts a bigger light on details. 

I may try another Johnny Ortiz novel at some point in the future. Murder in the Walls certainly isn't terrible, but life is short and there are better series titles I'd like to explore further. In the meantime I may just venture back to a certain precinct in an unnamed city in the northeast and read those books.