Tony Hillerman's Navajoland
Hideouts, Haunts, and Havens in the Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee Mysteries

Laurance D. Linford
Foreword by Tony Hillerman

312 pp., 6 x 9
65 Photographs
Paper $19.95
ISBN 978-0-87480-848-3
Native American Studies/Reference

“I welcomed the opportunity to work with Mr. Linford when he suggested we apply his special knowledge of the history, legends, and mythology to the places where my plots are set to give readers a sort of informed and enlightened tour.”
—from the Foreword by Tony Hillerman

In more than a dozen novels set in the American Southwest, Tony Hillerman’s heroes, Lt. Joe Leaphorn and Officer Jim Chee, travel the mountains, deserts, and towns of the Four Corners tracking wrongdoers. In Tony Hillerman’s Navajoland, Laurance Linford follows the sleuths through urban landscapes and rural outposts. The result is an entertaining place-name guide to the traditional homelands of the Navajo people. This newly revised edition includes additional entries for three new Hillerman novels: The Wailing Wind, The Sinister Pig, and Skeleton Man.

Offered in encyclopedic form, each entry begins with the common name of a particular location, then gives the native name and history, followed by a description of the location’s significance in various Hillerman novels. As with nearly all Native American cultures, their place-names are deeply meaningful to the Navajo people. An understanding of the Navajo names and their relations to the landscape will lend a new dimension to the characters and events Tony Hillerman has created.

A treat for the curious and a delight for fans of Hillerman’s mysteries, Tony Hillerman’s Navajoland is a feast of information about the beautiful and barren southwestern landscape. This is a must-have companion volume to Tony Hillerman’s novels.

“An invaluable guide. . . . This book belongs in the car of any traveler passing through this land.”
—New Mexico Magazine

“An entertaining place-name guide to the traditional homelands of the Navajo people.”
—The Indian Trader

Laurance D. Linford was trained as an archaeologist. Formerly executive director of the Inter-Tribal Indian Ceremonial Association in Gallup, New Mexico, he is now an administrator for the Gallup-McKinley County Public Schools. Linford is the author of Navajo Places: History, Legend, Landscape (University of Utah Press, 2000).