Indebted to the police procedural, Talking God also borrows from the political thriller and the psychological crime novel. In this intricately plotted novel, Hillerman creates a tangled web involving Chilean politics, Navajo tradition, the Washington bureaucracy, and the lives of individual people. He provides detailed excursions into the warped psyche of Leroy Fleck, the once skinny runt now turned trained hit man thanks to the federal prison system. With the subplot involving a political vendetta, the plot moves into the realm of international intrigue and diplomacy.