Join today and start reading your favorite books for Free!
Rate this book!
Write a review?
Back in the mid-1950's, Horace Miner wrote an article called "Body Ritual among the Nacirem," which described what Americans did in the bathroom in social scientist language. Some people found this particularly clever, and it's become quite influential in the field.One can clearly see the influence of this article in this early entry in the Leaphorn and Chee series, as Leaphorn is constantly saying he wants to understand White people.The plot concerns the murders of young Indian boys. Many think...
I read my first Tony Hillerman book back in far off Boston after a friend recommended it. His mysteries intertwine details about southwest Indian culture with the murder investigations of Navajo tribal police detective Joe Leaphorn. Now that I have moved to New Mexico, I have an even greater interest in these stories, which I am trying to read in order. This is the second book in the series. The contrast between the Zuñi and Navajo cultures is a focal point of this book. The Zuñi believe in a sp...
This was a superb mystery, and is up there with the best I have read--it is suspenseful, engaging, informative, and rich in detail and local color. Like most of Hillerman's stuff, it is set in the Navajo country of Arizona and New Mexico. This, I believe, was his first big hit, and it won the Edgar Award.In this story, a Zuni Indian teenager is found slashed to death. He was training to be the Fire God in an upcoming religious ceremony and he was privy to secret tribal knowledge. There is eviden...
I read a lot of mystery authors and each of their popular character driven series… Robert B. Parker, John Sanford, Michael Connelly, Ian Rankin, Louise Penny, and Craig Johnson to name a few. And now I am taking a step back, and based on positive comments from the creator of Longmire and Spenser, I am taking a chance on Tony Hillerman’s classic Leaphorn and Chee Navajo mystery series. One that has been popular enough, like the Robert B. Parker estate, to be successfully continued his daughter, A...
One that I'll re-read to get the full effect. A plot that kept me guessing. Loads of detail about Hopi religion, which was very interesting. Settings out on the mesa and at deserted hogans. One of Hillerman's better books.
This is the second novel in the series featuring Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn of the Navajo Tribal Police. It was published in 1973 and won the Edgar Award for Best Novel. It is set in New Mexico, primarily in Ramah (part of the Navajo Reservation) and the Zuni village. The title comes from a Zuni concept, Kothluwalawa. The "Dance Hall of the Dead" is what the Zuni Indians call heaven.In the opening Ernesto Cata is training to play his role as Shulawitsi the Fire God in an upcoming Zuni religious cer...
4.5 Stars for Dance Hall of the Dead: Leaphorn & Chee #2 (audiobook) by Tony Hillerman read by George Guildall. I really like that this is set in the southwest. The series has a really unique perspective. It’s interesting to see what it’s like to be a cop on the reservation.
4 starsI have been reading Tony Hillerman books for almost 30 years. Now, with the help of Goodreads, I am going back and reading all the ones that I missed. I have enjoyed every single one, and strongly recommend this series, probably reading it in order, unlike me. Hillerman was so respected by his portrayal of the Navajo nation, that they adopted him into the tribe. In this book, Lt. Joe Leaphorn is assigned to look for a missing Navajo youth who may have been present at the murder of a Zuni
It seemed to him that a single homicide could be thought of as a unit - as something in which an act of violence contained beginning and end, cause and result. But two homicides linked by time, place, participants and, most important, motivation presented something more complex. The unit became a sequence, the dot became a line, and lines tended to extend, to lead places, to move in directions.I wasn't even going to continue with this series.The first book, The Blessing Way, was a horrible combi...
This is the second of Tony Hillerman's celebrated books featuring Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn of the Navajo Tribal Police. Later, Leaphorn would be assisted by a younger officer, Jim Chee, but this book, which won The Edgar Award, belongs to Leaphorn alone.A young Zuni Indian boy, Ernesto Cata, disappears while training for his important role in an upcoming tribal ceremony. A large pool of blood suggests that something very bad has happened to Ernesto, and Joe Leaphorn is assigned to fine Ernesto's
I first read this book as a teenager back in the 1980s. I loved this series! I read a few books before life intervened and I no longer had a lot of time to read. College ...relationships ....marriage ...work....kids. Those things tend to suck up so much time that books take a back seat. Now that the kids are grown and I'm older, I have time for books again.....and I'm re-visiting favorites. Tony Hillerman definitely made my list of required reading!Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn is with the Navajo poli...
Audiobook performed by George Guidall Book number two in Tony Hillerman's Joe Leaphorn series has Joe investigating the disappearance of two Native-American boys. His efforts are complicated by the unique laws and sacred religious rites of the Zuñi people (Joe is Navajo). There are also federal agents (FBI? DEA?) involved and an important archeological dig in the middle of his search area. I love the way Leaphorn thinks things through before acting. And I like learning little Native American cul...
December is a good time to re-read Dance Hall of the Dead, which centers around the Zuni Shalako ceremony, timed to the winter solstice. When Hillerman wrote this, his second Joe Leaphorn mystery (1973), the ceremony remained open to non-Natives, who flocked to witness it. The impressive rite was subsequently closed to outsiders, however. (From what I heard, it was because Anglo guests simply did not know how to behave.) Leaphorn, too, is something of an outsider here, negotiating the challenges...
An interesting mystery, and a better story than The Blessing Way.Two boys have gone missing. Due to jurisdictions, Leephorn is called to investigate Navajo George Bowlegs' disappearance, while the feds go looking for the Zuni boy, Ernesto. The searches turn desperate after a large patch of blood is found in the desert...Hillerman turns over the rock on cultural superiority/ inferiority, child neglect, FBI snobbery, and shady archaeologists.
I love Tony Hillerman's books. He had a way of drawing you in and letting you learn about different Native American tribes all with a mystery attached to it.
This 1974 Edgar Best Novel winner was a re-read for me -- I've read and enjoyed all of Tony Hillerman's novels featuring Lt. Joe Leaphorn and Sgt. Jim Chee, alone and together. And, by the time I was 7/8 of the way through it, I had remembered the motive and the perpetrator; but Hillerman's writing maintained me in a state of suspense until the last page.In this, one of the earliest of his Navajo novels, the character of Lt. Joe Leaphorn is just beginning to be developed. We hear nothing at all
This mystery features Joe Leaphorn and is set in Zuni land. Joe is called to a conference of police officers because a Zuni boy has been found almost beheaded and his best friend a Navajo, George Bowlegs is missing. Leaphorn only job is to locate the Navajo boy. As he investigated he vegans to feel George is not the killer and must him before George is killed. He has the help a white girl Susan.There is much cultural information about the Zuni story of man's beginning and the Navajo beginning th...
In Dance Hall of the Dead, celebrated Southwestern author Tony Hillerman will introduce you to the people of the Four Corners. There, four Native American nations sprawl across the states of New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and Colorado. The Navajo Nation is by far the largest, encompassing a population of 360,000 in some 27,000 square miles, a little larger than the state of West Virginia and more than twice the size of Maryland. The much less populous Hopi, Ute, and Zuñi Nations occupy much smaller
These Tony Hillerman Navajo Mysteries are a walk down memory lane for me! My Mom was born in New Mexico and the minute Hillerman started churning out these books, she read them as fast as they were published. I also read many of them, but have no memory of the specifics so it's fun to read them here in the 21st Century. This book takes place at the intersection of Zuni and Navajo spiritual practices, which added greatly to the interest for me. A Zuni teenager is killed and his Navajo pal is on t...
I really enjoyed this western crime thriller set in Arizona. The MC is a Navajo Police Officer, Joe Leaphorn. A boy is found missing from the Zuni tribe, and Leaphorn is called in because one of his friends a Navajo is also missing. I loved learning more about the history and mythology of the Zuni and Navajo tribes. I also liked the mystery of the story and didn't figure it out until Joe said what happened. Great story telling.