Biography and Works of Tony Hillerman

Award-Winning Navajo Mystery Series Author Tony Hillerman

Dec 4, 2008 Vickie Britton

Tony Hillerman was best known for his mystery novels set in the Southwest. His detectives Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee set a new tradition in detective fiction.

Though not the first author to have a Native American as detective, Hillerman’s works made the genre popular. Many other authors followed in his footsteps.

Author Background Information

Tony Hillerman was born in Sacred Heart, Oklahoma to August A. and Lucy Grove Hillerman. He was the youngest of three children.

In 1943, Hillerman joined the Army, where he served in combat during World War 11. He received many awards, including the Purple Heart. He was wounded in combat and from then on was blind in one eye.

After his discharge in 1945, he enrolled at the University of Oklahoma and received a B.A. degree. He began a career as a journalist. In 1948, he married Marie Unzner, and they had six children. He received his M.A. from the University of New Mexico in Alburquerque, and joined their faculty, where he taught until 1987. Hillerman died on October 26, 2008, at the age of 83.

The Navajo Series

The series set in Navajo country, for which Hillman is most famous, consists of 18 books. The first book in the series,The Blessing Way, was published in 1970. His second novel, Dance Hall of the Dead was a 1974 Edgar winner. His themes often involve a crime that appears to have supernatural qualities, such as the belief they have been committed by witches or skinwalkers.

The setting of his novels is as integral as the characters that make up the landscape. When reading his novels, a person has the sense of actually being there, of experiencing the beauty and isolation of the canyons and arid land that make up the reservation.

Besides entertainment, Hillerman wrote with the goal of helping to preserve Native American culture. Though not of Native American blood, he felt a kinship to the Dineh, the Hopi and the Zuni, their ways and traditions, and sought to preserve them though his books.

Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee

The books in the series feature Lieut. Joe Leaphorn and Sergeant Jim Chee of the Navajo Tribal Police. The two policemen have contrasting views in the way they see the world. Leaphorn, older, wiser, and a bit more cynical uses logic to solve crimes. Jim Chee, younger, more idealistic, attempts to seek a spiritual connection to his Navajo roots.

Chee does not appear until Hillerman’s fifth novel, People of Darkness. Some books feature Leaphorn, while others concentrate on Chee. The two detectives worked their first case together in his 1986 novel, Skinwalkers, which pitted Leaphorn’s disbelief in witchcraft and superstition with Chee’s belief in the spirit word. In his books superstition is often used by the criminal to cover up their crimes.

Films Based on the Series

In 1991, The Dark Wind , produced by Robert Redford, was made into a movie starring Lou Diamond Phillips as Chee and Fred Ward as Leaphorn.

A PBS series, also produced by Redford, adapted three of Hillerman’s novels, Skinwalkers (2002), Coyote Waits (2003), and A Thief of Time (2004). This series starred Adam Beach as Chee and Wes Studi as Leaphorn.

Other Mysteries

A Fly on the Wall (1971) is one of Hillerman’s earlier mysteries, which does not feature Chee and Leaphorn. Reporter John Cotton is "a fly on the wall", a reporter who knows too much about political corruption and the death of a fellow reporter.

Finding Moon (1995) When talking about his novels, Hillerman often mentioned that this novel had a special place in his heart. Finding Moon has a very different hero and setting than his series. Hero Moon Mathias journeys to Cambodia and fights political unrest to find the child of his brother who died in a helicopter crash.

Autobiography and Nonfiction

In addition to mysteries, Hillerman wrote an autobiography, Seldom Disappointed, which gives an account of his life from his growing up in Oklahoma to his military service, to his career as a journalist, teacher and writer.

Hillerman wrote 18 books in the Navajo series, His total of 30 books include several novels of nonfiction about the Southwest.

Hillerman's Navajo 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)

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Tony Hillerman