The Brightest Cardigan I've Ever Made and People of Darkness

The knitting is this patternless cardigan for my daughter and the novel is People of Darkness by Tony Hillerman.

I bought this yarn 2 years ago and have been trying to make a blanket with it since then.  That's not quite true.  I realized that I hadn't worked on the blanket in about a year, and made this slouchy cardigan for my daughter this past week.  We've been snowed in, and she likes big sweaters.  It seemed like a good idea at the time.  And now I've made the brightest cardigan ever!  I have to say that it's the brightest cardigan and not just the brightest sweater--one time I made a sweater with some acrylic that was black light reactive.  That was also for my daughter.  Every time I knit for her I have to chuckle a little about the knitting daydreams I had before she was born when I envisioned making her little garments in neutral oatmeals and gray heathers.  

The yarn is Caron Chunky Cakes and the colorway is Sweet and Sour.  It's a little thinner than your average super bulky weight yarn, but that's how it's classified.  I'm a loose knitter and used Size 11 needles for a gauge of around 2 stitches per inch.  The yarn is self-striping, but I cut it up for even stripes.  I goofed a little on the front increases and the button band, but the kiddo doesn't seem to care.  I also initially thought the sleeves were tremendously long and hoped that this would fit her for a couple of years, but she grows a little more every day and I'll be lucky if this fits past the spring.  Maybe she'll inherit my love of three-quarter sleeves.  I still have a skein's worth of the yarn left in my stash that will probably get turned into hats.  But I think I might keep a little bit on hand in case I need to lengthen those sleeves.

So!  The novel.  We meet Sgt. Jim Chee.  He's thinking of joining the FBI.  He's thinking of leaving law enforcement altogether and becoming a healer.  He's studied anthropology.  He's asked by a rich lady to recover a stolen box belonging to her husband as a private job.  What's in there?  She doesn't know!  What does this have to do with a peyote church, an explosion from 30 years ago, and a creepy pale assassin?  I'm still not sure.  It's all jumbled in there, and there's an awful lot of backstory on the hired gun who builds bombs and pays a bunch of money to a private detective to search for the mother who abandoned him.  Hillerman's pace of story-telling is always....unhurried, but I could do without the chapters from the assassin's point of view because I don't like those.  

Fun parts: Chee gets 2 different police cars blown up.  That feels like the entire police budget for his little area in 1980, but it's apparently unremarkable.  He goes to a rug auction at the school gym and meets Mary Landon, a well-intentioned white lady teacher.  They irritate each other and flirt a lot and she accompanies him an awful lot even after he endangers her life.  I don't know if I'm irritated by Hillerman's recurring character of Remarkably Chill Young White Woman Who is Ready to Tag Along for Whatever or if it kind of tickles me.  It's technically a different character every book, but...not really.  This one functions to push Chee to examine his feelings and reactions.  

By the way, "people of darkness" is a translation of a phrase for "mole people".  The members of a peyote church from the 1950s had the mole as their totem.   Ta da, that's where the title comes from.  

I had forgotten how many books have Leaphorn and Chee existing independently of each other before they finally meet and work together.  But this is a good introduction to Jim and another fun read.