Joe Leaphorn

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Created by Tony Hillerman
(1925-2008)
Series continued by Anne Hillerman

How on earth did I miss this?

I’ve long been familiar with the series by Tony Hillerman, set in the Navajo Nation which covers parts of Arizona, southeastern Utah, and New Mexico, and read several of the early entries in the series, back when I was reading all over the mystery genre. Cozies, domestics, spy thrillers, some non-Hammer Spillanes—I read them all. And then I discovered Chandler, Macdonald and Parker, and the die was pretty much cast.

But somehow I missed that as far back as  The Fallen Man, (1996), Leaphorn had retired from the Navajo Tribal Police, and gets a private investigator’s license, while still holding on to his title as a county sheriff. A widower, he lives in nearby Window Rock, Arizona.

Why didn’t somebody tell me?

Of course, the series didn’t suddenly become a private eye series. There was still Jim Chee hovering around, and the stories never focussed exclusively on Leaphorn and his P.I. business—instead mostly following Chee.

Still, he took all the usual P.I. cases: a lot of missing persons and the like, while occasionally helping out Chee and his wife, Officer Bernie Manuelito, on cold cases. And of course the stories are all steeped in Navajo culture.

Unfortunately, when Hillerman passed away in 2008 and his daughter Anne took over the series, with 2013’s Spider Woman’s Daughter, the series took another turn, and Bernie became the main detective, while Leaphorn sat on the sidelines, recuperating from a coma, following an assassination attempt. He’s then shunted out of the action for the next few books, more advisor and mentor than participant, barely mentioned in some of the books, except on the covers where they’re now billed as part of the “Leaphorn, Chee and Manuelito” mysteries.

So it’s an encouraging sign that he seems to be back in the saddle, at least temporarily, in The Tale Teller (2019), and Lost Birds (2024), although his absence from many of the other Anne Hillerman novels is disappointing.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Anthony Grove Hillerman was an American author and aMWA Grand Master, best known for his best-selling mystery novels featuring Navajo Nation police officers Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee, several of which have been adapted for film and television. When he passed away in 2008, his daughter Anne Hillerman eventually took over the series, publishing Spider Woman’s Daughter, although the novel’s protagonist is Jim Chee’s wife, Officer Bernadette Manuelito. Unfortunately,

NOVELS BY TONY HILLERMAN

NOVELS BY ANNE HILLERMAN

FURTHER INVESTIGATION

Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.

Published

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