Day 20 (D-41) Navajo mystery novels: A famous American writer, Tony Hillerman

Day 20 (D-41) Navajo mystery novels today.  I’ve decided to present Tony Hillerman today, so as to give the travelers 41 more days to read one of his books before we leave!  We'll come back to the Navajo Nation later in this blog.

Tony Hillerman (1925 – 2008) was an American author of detective novels and non-fiction works best known for his  Navajo Tribal Police mystery novels.  While you are trying to solve the crime, you are taken to these beautiful parts of the American Southwest and you also discover not only the Native Americans of today living there, but also their ancestors' traditions.  Hillerman did a lot of research and a lot of reading to prepare each novel and he turned to his Navajo friends to have them check his writing for accuracy and believability. 

He won many literary awards.  "Good reviews delight me when I get them," he once said. "But I am far more delighted by being voted the most popular author by the students of St. Catherine Indian School, and even more by middle-aged Navajos who tell me that reading my mysteries revived their children's interest in the Navajo Way."  

His Navajo mysteries take place in and around the Navajo Reservation in northeastern Arizona and northwestern New Mexico.. These novels describe people, both Native and non-Native, struggling to maintain traditions in the modern world. There are 18 novels in his Navajo series, translated into 8 languages.  If you like reading detective stories, let Tony Hillerman take you to the American Southwest, in English, or in French.

Here are 2 you could choose:

A Thief of Time:  The first of Hillerman's novels to become a New York Times bestseller.  When Hillerman first saw the expression "A Thief of Time", he thought: "The message here is obvious--this guy is not only stealing artifacts, he's stealing our ablility to learn about our past."  The story is a quest that leads to a moonlit Indian ruin where "thieves of time" have ravaged sacred ground (cliff dwellings and the ancient pottery found there) for profit.

Skeleton Man:  Tony Hillerman wrote: " The start of the book is a historic plane crash.  After World War II, the big passenger planes started flying and two of them collided over the Grand Canyon.   The accident, sometime in the 1950s, was the beginning of airline safety regulations."  In this book he uses the Grand Canyon as his setting.

L'Homme Squelette:  "Le 30 juin 1956, deux avions entrent en collision au-dessus du Grand Canyon; il n'y a aucun survivant.

Presque cinquante ans plus tard, un jeune indien Hopi dépose chez un prêteur sur gage de Gallup un diamant contre vingt dollars. Intrigué, le directeur de l'établissement fait expertiser la pierre et apprend qu'elle en vaut vingt mille. Coïncidence, un braquage vient d'être commis dans une bijouterie. Le Hopi est arrêté, mais il clame son innocence ..."

My best,

Jane

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--Good reviews delight me = De bonnes critiques me font plaisir

--revive = to renew in the mind or memory