Since 1970, writer Tony Hillerman has developed the detective fiction genre with his highly regarded series of detective novels set on Navajo customs and culture. His two Native American detectives, Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee, pursue their investigations in and around the Navajo reservation that covers parts of Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. Hillerman's major innovation to detective fiction has been to transplant an essentially European American method of detection into the Native American cultural context. The effect is to reveal the method's shortcomings and address Native American concerns by showing that a detective must have intimate knowledge of the specific culture in which a crime takes place. Without that knowledge of cultural difference, the so-called analytical method of detection cannot be used successfully to solve a mystery. For a white writer even to consider entering such a difficult cultural arena as this is remarkable...