The Navajo Mysteries of Tony Hillerman

Tony Hillerman was a mystery author with a mission: to write suspense novels that showcase tribal cultures of the Southwest, little known to the wider American audience. He masterfully succeeded in his eighteen novels featuring Navajo Tribal police’s Lt. Joe Leaphorn and Sargent Jim Chee.

Tony Hillerman

His first book in the series, The Blessing Way, was published in 1970 and his last, The Shape Shifter in 2006, two years before his death at 83. In between some of his best mystery novels include A Thief of Time, Talking God and Coyote Waits. In 1974 Hillerman won the Edgar Allan Poe award for best mystery for his novel Dance Hall of the Dead (1973). And in 1991 the Mystery Writers of America honored him with its Grandmaster Award.

A former newspaper editor, Hillerman was a prolific writer, in both fiction and non-fiction, but it was the Leaphorn/Chee mystery series that brought him international fame and secured his recognition by the Navajo Nation as a Special Friend of the Dineh (the Navajo).

Each Leaphorn/Chee novel captivates readers with intriguing, intricate plots, the gritty realism of reservation life among the Navajo, Hopi and Zuni tribes, and the impact of the vast expanse of the Southwest desert and sky on Native American character and culture.

Hillerman’s two Navajo protagonists have richly honed characters, distinct but complementary. Leaphorn is older, college-educated, and knowledgeable about mainstream white culture. Chee is younger with a deep connection to the Navajo way and ambitions to become a medicine man. He is continually puzzled by the white culture.

Early in life, Hillerman developed a first-hand understanding of native tribes. He grew up poor in Oklahoma on the territorial land of the Potawatomi and attended school among the tribe’s children. He drew a crucial cultural distinction between Native Americans and whites during a 2002 interview on the Paula Gordon Show, produced on the Internet by the Clarion Group Live. Hillerman said that during droughts Oklahoma farmers prayed for rain, while the tribes prayed instead to be in harmony with the weather, seeing themselves as part of nature, not distinct from it.

No other author wrote as honestly and respectfully of American Indian culture. And readers of Hillerman’s mystery novels can experience an immersion into Navajo culture as rewarding as the solutions to his intelligent, interwoven plots.

A complete list of Hillerman’s Navajo mystery series.

The Blessing Way (1970) 

Dance Hall of the Dead (1973)

Listening Woman (1978)

People of Darkness (1980),

The Dark Wind (1982)

The Ghostway (1984)

Skinwalkers (1986)

A Thief of Time (1988)

Talking God (1989)

Coyote Waits (1990)

Sacred Clowns (1993)

The Fallen Man (1996)

The First Eagle (1998)

Hunting Badger (1999)

The Wailing Wind (2002)

The Sinister Pig (2003)

Skeleton Man (2004)

The Shape Shifter (2006)