News Blog @ Wellington City Libraries

Award winning American crime writer Tony Hillerman died on 26th October 2008 aged 86. His first novel, The Blessing Way, published in 1970, featured Lieutenant Joe  Leaphorn of the Navajo tribal police. This character  became a favourite with readers, and when Tony Hillerman linked him to another equally popular character Sergeant Jim Chee, in the novel Skin-walker, published in 1986, it became a bestseller and won a Spur award from the Western Writers of America. All his eighteen mystery novels are set in the Navajo lands of south-west America and deal sympathetically with issues facing the Navajo people and their culture. He was awarded the best novel Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America in 1973 for Dance Hall of the Dead.

Tony Hillerman also wrote children’s books, edited numerous anthologies as well as several non-fiction books about the American south-west. His last novel, The Shape Shifter was published in 2006.