Tony Hillerman was one of the leading lights of American mystery writers. Most of his books were set in New Mexico among the Navajos. As a child I lived in New Mexico and got to know and love the Navajo people. Hillerman started his series with three books featuring Joe Leaphorn who in many ways was a more traditional policeman. His next three novels featured Jim Chee who was part policeman and part shaman. After the first six books Hillerman went on to write the rest of the series with both characters. The review of the Joe Leaphorn books is here.
This is a brief biography of Tony Hillerman who passed away in October of 2008 from Harper-Collins his publisher:
Tony Hillerman (1925–2008), an Albuquerque, New Mexico, resident since 1963, was the author of 29 books, including the popular 17-mystery series featuring Navajo police officers Jim Chee and Joe Leaphorn, two non-series novels, two children’s books, and nonfiction works. He had received every major honor for mystery fiction; awards ranging from the Navajo Tribal Council's commendation to France 's esteemed Grand prix de litterature policiere. Western Writers of America honored him with the Wister Award for Lifetime achievement in 2008. He served as president of the prestigious Mystery Writers of America, and was honored with that group’s Edgar Award and as one of mystery fiction’s Grand Masters. In 2001, his memoir, Seldom Disappointed, won both the Anthony and Agatha Awards for best nonfiction.
The second three Navajo mysteries featured Navajo policeman Jim Chee. Jim Chee is torn between two possible lives. Part of him wants to be a part of the white man’s world and join the F.B.I. and part of him wants to remain a Navajo and become a singer. He is also a romantic and is looking for true love.
People of Darkness is the first Jim Chee novel. The novel starts with a Navajo named Emerson Charley checking into a hospital. Charley is dying of cancer. Charley’s truck is blown up in the hospital parking lot. Why would someone try to kill a man who was already dying? Jim Chee meets Rosemary Vimes around the same time. Emerson’s father Dillon was buried at the Vimes house. Rosemary wants Chee to find a box that has been stolen that belongs to her husband . Vimes is a very rich man and a big game hunter. Rosemary wants to know what is hidden in that box believing it holds a clue to B.J. Vime’s past. She believes that the box was stolen by a Native American religious group that had been formed by Dillon Charley.
The case becomes more complicated when B.J. Vimes tells Chee to forget about it. The local Sheriff Gordo Sena threatens Chee wanting him to cease investigating the theft. He claims that the whole thing goes back to an explosion 30 years previously where several people including Sena’s brother were killed in a nitroglycerine explosion. Complicating everything is a professional assassin named Colton Wolf who appears to be involved in searching for the thief. Wolf tries to kill Chee and schoolteacher Mary Landon, a white woman that Chee is falling for. With the F.B.I., the Albuquerque Police, the Sheriff, and a determined killer who has already wounded him once, pursuing him Chee is in a race against time to solve a 30 year old mystery before more people are killed including him.
The Dark Wind begins with Jim Chee trying to find who was sabotaging a windmill. This particular story really brought home the conflicts between Native Americans and the Government Agencies that are supposed to help them but in reality do much more harm than good. It also touches on some of the problems that occur between different tribes both of whom consider the same pieces on land sacred.
The story starts with a corpse being found whose palms and feet had been skinned to make identification difficult. The corpse is found by three Hopi men on their way back to their homes while preparing for a ceremony that would bring the rains back to the drought stricken lands.
Chee has been assigned to find who is sabotaging a windmill that was on land that Navajos had been removed from and given to the Hopis. Chee hears a plane coming in very low and checks it out to discover that it had crashed. He figures they were smuggling drugs but he finds only two corpses. This brings him into conflict with Johnson from the DEA.
The story continues to build with Chee’s life being threatened by the drug dealers, whoever caused the crash, and especially by Johnson and the Feds.
It is an uneasy story and it will make you think.
The Ghostway starts with an elderly Navajo talking to a young man in a flashy car and witnessing the death of another young man. The story goes on to deal with the way the Navajo people view death. It also deals with Navajos who were forcibly taken from their homes and resettled in large cities like far away Los Angeles.
Jim Chee is assigned to find a runaway student Margaret who turns out to be the granddaughter of the elderly Navajo who witnessed the crime. The case takes him away from the home reservations and into the criminal world in Los Angeles. It also introduces him to the world of the Witness Protection Program and the abuses that lie within that program. The twists and turns in this book make it very interesting and the ending was a surprise.
Tony Hillerman was one of the best mystery writers around in my opinion. He had great respect for the people he wrote about. The books are a combination of good mysteries and a lesson in the Native American beliefs especially the Navajos. In future diaries I'll be covering the novels that starred both Leaphorn and Chee. Because of the number of them and they way the story develops I'll be covering them in groups of four or five.
Readers & Book Lovers Series Schedule
Sat Aug 17, 2013 at 8:26 AM PT: In researching I found the obituary of Tony Hillerman in the Navajo Times. It touches on both sides of the controversy and I believe all of us here could learn something. http://www.navajotimes.com/...