Series: Navajo Mysteries
by Author Tony Hillerman
Coyote Waits (1992)
I read this many years ago, when it first came out in 1990, and have just re-read it, as I am reading a series of other southwestern-themed mysteries and I wanted to see if Hillerman’s stories held up against both time and the newer stories. The answer is yes, it did – it held up well against bo...
Hunting Badger (2001)
With Tony Hillerman's "Hunting Badger," I'm beginning to wonder if this is the onset of the series sailing over the Selachimorpha. There are three things in the book that worry me. First, as a trivial thing near the beginning, we've got this:"The little hatch Chee had cut into the bottom of the t...
The Blessing Way (1990)
THE BLESSING WAY was Tony Hillerman's first novel. Although Navajo police officer Joe Leaphorn appears in the book, he is a secondary character. The main character is Bergen McKee, a tenured professor with expertise in the social context of Navajo witchcraft. McKee is still recovering from his di...
The Dark Wind (1990)
The backdrop of the book starts with the Federal government giving some Navajo land to the Hopis and forcing some 9,000 Navajos off their land. The Navajos had been hauling water in this arid stretch by hand. After the government took this piece of land from the Navajos, they constructed eight wi...
The Sinister Pig (2004)
Good old-fashioned crime novel set primarily in southwestern New Mexico involving murder, border issues, corrupt local cops and federal politicians, drug smuggling, etc. The main protagonists are folks you can root for, and the bad guys are, well, you'll have to read the book. Hillerman is a go...
Skeleton Man (2006)
There are a lot of things to like about this book, which is my first Hillerman experience, but I think my favorites were the characters. This is not the first book in the series, and I was a little confused for the first couple of pages, but it didn’t take long for me to warm to the very human c...
The Shape Shifter (2006)
You know how actors and people in some other fields get "lifetime achievement awards," and sometimes they get an Oscar not so much for the movie for which they are ostensibly getting the Oscar, but because they have been around a long time and everyone loves them and they're probably not gonna tu...
Skinwalkers (1990)
Those looking for a great mystery series who have yet to discover Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee are in for a treat with Skinwalkers. Tony Hillerman created an entire genre with these novels, and though they've been copied, no one has ever quite found the blend of Native American beliefs and tradition...
People of Darkness (1991)
Navajo Tribal Police Sergeant Jim Chee is asked by Rosemary Vines, the wife of B.J. Vines, one of the richest men in New Mexico, to find a box of her husband's keepsakes that has been stolen. Chee doesn't know if he will take the job, but his curiosity is further piqued when the local Sheriff, a...
The First Eagle (1999)
Tony Hillerman has once again created a fresh and involving entry in his fine series about the Navajo Tribal Police. In this one, the retired Leaphorn is at loose ends after the death of his beloved wife, Emma. Chee, meanwhile, has become acting Lieutenant, but is experiencing reservations over t...
The Wailing Wind (2003)
A man is found shot dead in his truck at the end of a dry wash. There are only the tire tracks of his pickup truck going in. Nothing, not even footsteps coming back out. So who is he and how did he get there? Why was he killed? Sargent Jim Chee of the Navajo Tribal Police is reunited with legenda...
Dance Hall of the Dead (1990)
Plus d'un an entre le premier tome de Hillerman et ce deuxième tome, Dance Hall of the Dead, dérogeant ainsi à mon habitude terriblement chronophage de dévorer au moins quelques tomes consécutifs d'une séries en quelques jours. Je ne comprend pas ce qui s'est passé. Il semble cependant que ce soi...
A Thief of Time (1990)
Tony Hillerman created an entire genre with these novels, and though they've been copied, no one has ever quite found the blend of Native American beliefs and traditions and modern-day mystery Hillerman perfected. Visiting Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee in the pages of a Hillerman mystery is the next ...
Sacred Clowns (2003)
Sacred Clowns is truly Tony Hillerman at his best. Both Leaphorn and Chee are at a personal crossroad in their lives while attempting to solve two crimes which may or may not be related. A complex mystery is interwoven with the care befitting a sacred blanket as we learn about the Navajo and thei...
The Fallen Man (1997)
A skeleton is discovered 1,700 feet above the base of a sacred mountain in the four corners Indian reservation. Joe Leaphorn comes out of retirement to help investigate the case, believed to be the rich Anglo named Hal Breedlove who fell while trying to climb Ship Rock eleven years earlier. The L...
Listening Woman (1990)
Had it not been for some unfortunate connotations that I had with Hillerman (he was the author of choice for a particularly Wicked Stepmother), I would have most likely read his whole oeuvre by now. When he died earlier this year, I decided to make like a good Southwesterner and rectify this omis...
Spider Woman's Daughter (2013)
As I started this book, I had my fingers crossed it would at least approximate the wonderful stories of Anne Hillerman's dad Tony. Within a few pages it was clear that it would not be a disappointment, and that Anne was not going to play it safe. This book continues the wonderful descriptive narr...