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Tony Hillerman Message Board 12/9/2006 1:06:33 PM
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Author Hillerman's Book Reviews

A Thief of Time
This is probably one of the most suspenseful of the Chee/Leaphorn mysteries. In it we encounter a melancholy and downbeat Joe Leaphorn who, after the sad death of his wife Emma, decides to retire from his job with the Navajo Tribal Police. But then a young anthropologist specializing in ancient Anasazi pottery goes missing, and Leaphorn decides that he must solve the case because Emma would have wanted him to. When several murders are committed all ...
Coyote Waits
When Jim Chee finds his good friend--and fellow officer--inside his burning car, he doesn't hesitate to try to save him. Save him he does. Not only is Delbert Nez unconscious, but he has been shot. And, luck of all luck, he has no trouble apprehending the assailant--a Navajo shaman comes out, with the murder weapon in one hand and a bottle of whiskey in the other. Case closed. Or is it? The suspect refuses to speak, but the evidence is clear. But...
Dance Hall of the Dead
When two boys disappear, one of them leaving a pool of blood behind. Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn of the Navajo Tribal Police finds himself not only tracking a ruthless killer into the desert but finding out about the mysteries of the Zuni people's religion and in the politics of a controversial archeological dig. In his Navajo way, the Lieutenant tries to think his way through the problem and with the help of a sympathetic girl from a dodgy commune who befr...
Hunting Badger
In “Hunting Badger,” author Tony Hillerman's latest Leaphorn and Chee mystery once again captures, with vivid description, riveting detail, exciting plot, and superb characterization, life on and about the Navajo reservation. Hillerman's Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee team up once again to solve a crime in the Four Corners canyons. Hillerman takes a real-life crime (In 1998 three “survivalists” steal a truck, murder a policeman, and then disappear. ...

Hillerman booklist

Listening Woman
This is the third of Tony Hillerman's Leaphorn mysteries. Listening Woman, a blind Navajo healer, is tending to Old Man Tso in order to find out what has been ailing him as of late. While she is away seeking for a vision, Tso and Listening Woman's young assistant are slain by an unknown assailant. The FBI has no clue as to the identity of the murderer, and the case remains unsolved until Lieutenant Leaphorn from the Navajo Tribal Police takes it up again...
People of Darkness
This is one of many in a series created by Tony Hillerman. Jim Chee returns as Navajo tribal policeman, working out of Shiprock, New Mexico. He is temporarily assigned to Crownpoint when a strange request comes in. Mrs. Vines wants him to recover a stolen box from their house. Her husband is sick and the hospital and she wants it back before he returns home, hoping he'll feel better if his belongings have been returned. The box holds keepsakes to th...
Sacred Clowns
This story is very interesting, a detailed story of the investigation of two murders that relate to each other. Sometimes some stories tend to clutter but this story gave just enough detail, not too much. This was an excellently written book....
Seldom Disappointed
Tony Hillerman writes an autobiography, both serious and humourous. He finds himself unfit for the college studies he has chosen and enlists in the Army to fight in Europe during the Second World War. He plays many parts in life; encluding soldier, newspaper journalist, editor, University Professor and finally as a novelist. His self-story is as interesting and sometimes more interesting than the fiction that he writes. His portrayals of his fellow ...
Talking God
This is the ninth Leaphorn/Chee mystery, and Tony Hillerman is in top form with “Talking God.” Once again, he unites Lt. Joe Leaphorn (the elder, wiser one) and Jim Chee (often impetuous and dedicated to learning “the old ways” as a shaman). They are pursuing separate cases, both of which lead them to Washington DC, an unusual setting for a Hillerman work. Still, the author doesn't drop a beat. Chee is in town to arrest a curator of the Smit...
The Dark Wind
A unidentified corpse is found on Hopi reservation land that looks like it has become the victim of a Navajo skinwalker. A trading post employee is fired and steals a bunch of expensive jewellery from his employer. A windmill located on former Navajo land, now occupied by Hopi families, has been vandalized. And when Officer Chee guards the windmill at night, he sees a private plane crashing into a mountain nearby and finds a white man shot at the crash s...

Tony Hillerman list of books

The Fallen Man
Tony Hillerman has firmly placed the Navajo nation in American literary history. His Joe Leaphorn/Jim Chee novels have opened up a healthy, fresh literary landscape. In “The Fallen Man," the body of a man has been found on Ship Rock, a sacred mountain, some 1700 feet up. The mystery begins: what was he doing up there, how has he died, and, if murdered, who did it? All this happened some 11 years ago--and is discovered by a climbing party. ...
The First Eagle
Jim Chee, acting lieutenant in the Navajo Tribal Police follows up a call for backup by officer Benny Kinsman. He finds Kinsman dead and Robert Jano standing over him with blood on his clothes and arm. Kinsman has arrested Jano for poaching eagles in the past, and Chee correctly assumes he was poaching on this occasion. He arrests Jano for murder. Jano claims he is bleeding because an eagle he caught tore his arm. However, an eagle in Jano's cage shows ...
The Sinister Pig
The FBI are suspecting that a pipeline system in New Mexico is being used to bypass paying royalty money into the Interior Department's trust fund for the Indians. In fact, the embezzling has been going on for a long time - to the tune of billions of dollars. They send a 'spy' to investigate. When this well-dressed man, stripped of identification, is found dead, the FBI tells Jim Chee, a sergeant with the Navajo Tribal Police, that it's a hunting acciden...