When Tony Hillerman died in 2008, it was a sad day for fans of Lt. Joe Leaphorn and Sgt. Jim Chee of the Navajo Tribal Police. Thankfully, his daughter Anne has taken up the torch with Spider Woman's Daughter, offering her take on these memorable and beloved characters.
She doesn't waste any time shocking us. In the opening pages, Leaphorn is shot in the head in a parking lot outside a restaurant. Bernie Chee, Jim's wife (last seen in The Shape Shifter), also a member of the Tribal Police, rushes to help. Leaphorn is taken away in an ambulance and the story begins. As a distraught witness, Bernie's "officially" off the case, but she won't stop until she finds the shooter.
Bernie is the focus of the story, a major departure from Tony's focus on Leaphorn and then, later in the series, Jim Chee. Early leads concerning the shooter's car don't pan out. Maybe the mystery has to do with Louisa, Leaphorn's close friend, who's missing; they had had a fight. The trail then leads to a museum in Santa Fe and some insurance investigations Leaphorn was doing for it; his report is missing, too.
Although it must be daunting to take over a popular series written by a parent, Anne Hillerman fulfills the task splendidly. She grew up with her father's books and characters and loves New Mexico's natural beauty as much as he did (as demonstrated by her 2009 coffee-table book Tony Hillerman's Landscape: On the Road with Chee and Leaphorn). The mystery in Spider Woman's Daughter is fast-paced, intricate and enveloped by that great Southwestern landscape. Hopefully we'll have more installments to look forward to. --Tom Lavoie, former publisher