When Tony Hillerman died in 2008, it was a sad day for fans of Lt. Joe Leaphorn and Sergeant Jim Chee of the Navajo Tribal Police. But wait! 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, sees someone do it and drive away. She rushes to help, holds Leaphorn's hand, tells him he'll be okay. He's taken away in an ambulance and the story begins. Who did it and why? As a distraught witness, she's "officially" taken 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. Now, we see most events through Bernie's eyes. Early on, we're told about the Navajo myth of the Spider Woman, the magical weaver--and how Bernie's mother called her the Spider Woman Daughter because she could figure things out: "She helps with life's unexpected complications, untangling messy situations."
Early leads concerning the shooter's car, however, don't pan out. Maybe it has to do with Louisa, Leaphorn's close friend, who's missing; they had had a fight. But she can't be found. The investigation then focuses on a museum in Santa Fe and some insurance investigating Leaphorn was doing for them. He had written up a report that is now missing. What did he discover? Something worth killing him over?
Although it must be daunting to take over a popular series written by a parent, as Jeffrey Shaara did with the followups to his father Michael's The Killer Angels, Anne Hillerman has fulfilled 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 the 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
Shelf Talker: Anne Hillerman's first work of fiction--a tale of revenge and greed--brings a new twist to her father's popular Leaphorn & Chee mystery series.