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Rating: 
Summary: Unexpectedly good
Review: Even though I am a Hillerman fan, my expectations were loweredfor this book. I'm mainly interested in his Navajo mysteries. However,I found this book to be well-written and compelling. Definitely worththe read, even though it isn't Hillerman's best.
Rating: 
Summary: "A Nice, Quick Read"
Review: I am glad to be the first person to review this excellent piece of literature. Hillerman is a master.
Rating: 
Summary: Fly on the wall
Review: I did not enjoy this book as much as the rest of his books. It took me a long time to fully understand the characters in the book. The other day, I heard this book being compared to a glass of water. This person said, "It is like water. It really has no flavor, but at least it goes down quickly." I agree with this because overall, I did not like this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Not one of his best
Review: I enjoy the Hillerman Navajo mysteries because the characters are well developed. Not so in this book. I found the first half really boring and hard to get through. The characters were not people you could care about, an important issue for me.
Rating:
Summary: hillerman strikes out
Review: in my opinion tony hillerman should stick to what he writes best navajo mystery! his joe leaphorn and jim chee novels are his best works by far
Rating:
Summary: Fly on the wall
Review: This story is set in an unnamed Midwestern city. John Cotton is a reporter at the state's capitol. One of his colleagues tells him he is working on a really big story. Shortly after this the colleague falls several stories and dies. This starts Cotton investigating the same leads. Then another one of his friends is killed while driving Cotton's car.I found this to be a very slow book. The characters were not well developed. Cotton's attraction to Jane seems to come out of the blue. Also, I had difficulties following the leads in the beginning. They were very technical. The political intrigue did not get interesting until about 1/2 to 2/3 way through the book. One issue covered in the book is how much political corruption, stealing of public funds, etc. is allowable if it serves the purpose of getting or keeping the "better" politician in office. Tony Hillerman's books set on the Navajo reservation are better. The characters are much more well developed in those books.
Rating:
Summary: Read Hillerman's other books instead
Review: This story is set in an unnamed Midwestern city. John Cotton is a reporter at the state's capitol. One of his colleagues tells him he is working on a really big story. Shortly after this the colleague falls several stories and dies. This starts Cotton investigating the same leads. Then another one of his friends is killed while driving Cotton's car. I found this to be a very slow book. The characters were not well developed. Cotton's attraction to Jane seems to come out of the blue. Also, I had difficulties following the leads in the beginning. They were very technical. The political intrigue did not get interesting until about 1/2 to 2/3 way through the book. One issue covered in the book is how much political corruption, stealing of public funds, etc. is allowable if it serves the purpose of getting or keeping the "better" politician in office. Tony Hillerman's books set on the Navajo reservation are better. The characters are much more well developed in those books.
Rating:
Summary: Anachronistic
Review: Tony Hillerman's The Fly on the Wall has not aged particularly well. Written in 1971, early in his career, the book has been bypassed by technological advances as well as Hillerman's success with the Leaphorn/Chee series. Knowing that no future tales of John Cotton, newspaperman, have been written made getting into the book a little more difficult than I expected.
The characters and setting don't fit well with what one has come to think of as a "Tony Hillerman" book - that combination of Native Americans, their folklore, and the Southwest. To a man (and a woman), the characters are all extremely liberal in their political viewpoint. If you're convinced there's a liberal bias in the mainstream press, this novel will do nothing to disabuse you of that notion. Even if you do subscribe to the dominant point of view, you may be disappointed by some of the things liberalism's used to excuse in the final chapter. Perhaps the book's greatest weakness is the lack of alternate viewpoints explored: there are no real Republican characters either as foils or villains and this makes for some uninspired conflict and ultimately an unsatisfying resolution.
Part way through the book I found myself wishing Cotton would get himself out of a jam by making a cellphone call, or fax or e-mail his stories in to his editor, then I remembered - 1971! None of those things existed. Teletype machines and direct-dial long distance were the high tech of the day; even though photocopiers existed, Cotton still uses carbon paper throughout the story to make duplicates of his stories written on a manual typewriter. If you're nostalgic for these things, then you'll probably get more out of the story than I did.
The Southwest makes a brief appearance in the middle of the book when Cotton tries to find sanctuary there. While not quite as picturesque as in the Leaphorn/Chee books, this brief respite in New Mexico marks the point where the novel really picks up steam. Here and in Cotton's escape from the vacant Capitol building near the end of the novel are the two parts where Hillerman's pacing and plotting really shine. Compared to these fast-paced action scenes, the talky final chapter and the lengthy set-up in the first half of the book are big disappointments.
The Fly on the Wall isn't a terrible book, but it's clearly not Hillerman's best. If you're caught up on the latest Navajo novels, go ahead and tackle this one, but there's really no reason to go out of your way for it.
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