Hillerman's fans have another hit to celebrate, another surprising mysterious adventure. It may be a toss-up as to what draws them most strongly: varied, detailed, and fascinating revelations of contemporary culture; or compelling, complex, and original murder mysteries. Against the backdrop of the puzzle of the long-ago vanished Anasazi people, a complex mystery emerges in which Anglo culture and values pull against those of the Navajo, resulting in a bizarre series of murders solved by the Navajo Tribal Police. Fast, literate, absorbing reading with unique settings and characters, this title is for lovers of adventure as well as mystery.
The corpse had been "scalped," its palms and soles removed after death. Sergeant Jim Chee of the Navajo Tribal Police knows immediately he will have his hands full with this case—a certainty that is supported by the disturbing occurrences to follow. A mysterious nighttime plane crash, a vanishing shipment of cocaine, and a bizarre attack on a windmill only intensify Chee's fears. A dark and very ill wind is blowing through the Southwestern desert, a gale driven by Navajo sorcery and white man's greed. And it will sweep away everything unless Chee can somehow change the weather.
The Ghostway is the sixth book by Tony Hillerman. The plot involves two men who shoot each other at a laundromat, a runaway teenage girl, an abandoned hogan, an aluminum trailer, and a car theft ring. The main character is Jim Chee, an officer for the Navajo Tribal Police who must solve the murder of Albert Gorman and other Gormans.
After years spent on ranches around Los Angeles, Clay Tahoma is delighted to be Virgin River's new veterinary assistant. The secluded community's wild beauty tugs at his Navajo roots, and he's been welcomed with open arms by everyone in town-everyone except Lilly Yazhi.
In Tony Hillerman's The Shape Shifter, a lot is riding on a little mysterious carpet. Not any old welcome mat, but a precious Navajo tale-teller rug, full of portents, interwoven with bits of bark and feathers. Supposed to have been burned in a fire years before, the priceless artifact turns up in the pages of an interiors magazine, shown on the wall of a rich man named Jason Delos. After it's spotted by Joe Leaphorn, a retired Navajo policeman, and an old colleague of his (whose car almost immediately plunges down a canyon), the story ravels through an elaborate investigation of theft and murder.
