Point of View

The story is presented in third person with a limited perspective. This perspective is limited to that of Joe Leaphorn, the main character of the story. Leaphorn learns the facts of some events to which he was not a witness through police reports and information from an FBI agent. With that information being presented, the reader is able to keep track even with the limited perspective. There are several cases in which this limited perspective is a hindrance. For example, the reader is left to wonder about the identity of the man Leaphorn comes to call "goldrims" for some time. When Leaphorn isn't certain whether the man and Father Benjamin Tso could be one and the same, the reader is also left to speculate. While it can be argued that this is distracting for the reader, it can also be argued that this is an effective...