Did you hear Tony Hillerman died?

I didn’t know he was alive. I don’t think I ever read one. Was he like into mysteries that involved stables and horse or horse racing?

who?

It made me very sad. No more Jim Chee or Joe Leaphorn. No more complex depiction of modern Navajo life interacting with white American culture.

I am glad that I do not subscribe to the Navajo view of death and the afterlife, because I am sure that he is not an evil ghost.

Sue and mea: Tony Hillerman wrote mystery novels set on a modern Navaho reservation. The three things I loved most beyond the mysteries were the in depth realistic characters, the sense of place and time that most of us in an urban/suburban environment nerver experience, and an insight into an ancient American culture.

This is sad news – I love Tony Hillerman. I even published article about him in college.

Yes. I saw the obit last week. I have read everything he wrote, but really only loved the Chee/Leaphorn series. PBS (Robert Redford producing?) did a series from the novels but they were slow and couldn’t capture the Navaho mysteries. The actors did a lot of staring into space..

@Sueanne: You are thinking of Dick Francis. His novels are also very nice and original.

And Dick Francis isn’t dead yet (although he is tiny and wrinkled and has now started coauthoring with his son). Both Francis and Hillerman did a wonderful job of bringing the cultures of horseracing for the former and Navaho tribal life to readers. Oddly enough, while Francis’ expertise was from his having been a steeplechase jockey, Hillerman was not a Navaho by birth or culture. Yet he did such a good job that he was named a member of the Navaho Nation.