'Dark Winds' review: Novel doesn't translate well to TV

WHAT IT'S ABOUT An armored car heist shocks Gallup, New Mexico (the year is 1971), and Lt. Joe Leaphorn (Zahn McClarnon, "Westworld") of the Navajo Tribal Police is on the case. He's about to have help — a new officer under his command, Jim Chee (Kiowa Gordon), as well as trusted veteran Officer Bernadette Manuelito (Jessica Matten). Leaphorn has some unwelcome competition too — snarky FBI Agent Whitover (Noah Emmerich), who has come to town to catch the crooks himself. 

This new series based on Tony Hillerman's bestsellers (the first season is very roughly based on 1978's "Listening Woman") and was developed and produced by George R.R. Martin, Robert Redford, Graham Roland ("Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan") and Chris Eyre ("Smoke Signals").

MY SAY Hillerman wrote 18 novels in the Chee/Leaphorn series, which until now have remained mostly that — fully realized novels on the page but rarely on the small screen. In fact, there's at least one surprising reason why. Back in the '70s before his books became international bestsellers, Hillerman had sold the TV rights to the Leaphorn character. To prevent unauthorized adaptation of his novels, he was then forced to create a whole new character — Jim Chee, a much younger, hipper and more spiritually faceted version of Leaphorn. 

 By putting both in his subsequent novels (Chee arrived by the 4th book) Hillerman managed to keep the TV vultures at bay because they couldn't very well create a show without also buying the rights to Chee. 

Hillerman later bought back the Leaphorn rights, but by then TV was the de facto enemy and would remain so for years, until a couple of "Mystery!" adaptations arrived in the early aughts. (Hillerman did agree to a 1991 Redford-produced movie, "The Dark Wind" — no relation to this series.)

For Hillerman, as for fans, this distant remove from Hollywood was a blessing because nothing in these books — first-rate mysteries on their own — screamed prime-time. Instead, they evoked a vastness and solitude almost too deep for words, and of mysteries far more profound than any conventional detective plot. Time was expansive, infinite — etched in the canyon walls, or lost in their shadows. No one was ever in a hurry in a Hillerman novel, no plotline either. There was a sense of solitude and melancholy in Chee and Leaphorn, too. Trapped between cultures, that of the white and of the Diné (Navajo), they were soulful cops who desperately sought "Hozho" — "to walk in beauty" — but always had to catch the bad guys first.

"Dark Winds"' has some of this and, predictably, not quite nearly enough. The demands of commercial TV are simply too great, or the habits too ingrained. The violence is graphic, the bad guys broadly drawn. Chee and Leaphorn have new back stories, although nothing recognizable from the books. Both have also been endowed (or cursed) with an edge and bitterness. There are good reasons for this (no spoilers). Still, if "Dark Winds '' had only come up with better ones. 

This six-parter has made at least one significant improvement over the books — Manuelito, whom Hillerman never quite figured out, except as a romantic interest for Chee. In "Dark Winds," she's a full, interesting character in her own right. (Hillerman's daughter Anne made certain of that when she continued the Chee/Leaphorn series after her father's death in 2008.)

Yes, the cast is excellent and (yes) there's lots of promise here. But — from the Free Advice Department — future seasons should go back to those novels. Capture their spirit and that future is bright indeed. 

 BOTTOM LINE Entertaining, but the book is better (where have you heard that before?).