RIP Tony Hillerman 1925-2008
One of my favorite authors, Tony Hillerman, has passed away. If you don’t read mystery novels you wouldn’t be familiar with his work, but his novels set in the Four Corners of the American Southwest are an introduction to Native American culture and excellent police procedurals.
His Wikipedia entry covers his many jobs and the highlights of his life, but if you have worked in law enforcement you can appreciate his painstaking detail in how real police work takes place, and it isn’t “CSI”. His description of the interaction between Federal agencies and local police is absolutely accurate to anyone who has ever struggled to get information from the FBI that is needed for a case.
Thanks for sharing Mr. Hillerman.
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His last couple of novels clearly showed he was fading away from this world, they had that sort of perfunctory “well, it’s time for my nap so I’ll end the chapter here” feel to them, but it’s always sad when someone of his stature finally leaves entirely.
Someone I know who is Native American says that Hillerman is the only white man he ever knew who really “got” the fact that the Native Americans of the Southwest were distinct nations and distinct cultures. He approved greatly of Hillerman’s writing, though he was quick to add that Hillerman deliberately changed details of various ceremonies in order to protect the privacy of the people who did them.
And yes, pretty much any mystery writer worth his salt has swiped some of Hillerman’s interactions between street cops and Feds for their own novels. (Self included).
So anyhow, my recommendations to those of you who have not experienced Hillerman’s work: Start at the beginning. The first novel is good. The second novel, Dance Hall of the Dead, is simply brilliant. And the next nine novels after that don’t lose a lot over that high point in Hillerman’s literary career. After that he slowly fades away, but he never really got bad, in the way of some writers who are just churning things out for beer money, he just got old.
– Badtux the Mystery Penguin
He got old and so did his characters, and that isn’t a criticism, it is a talent. The characters progressed and changed, just as real people do.
There’s something to be said about working as a journalist before writing novels. You get into the habit of writing and you learn out to describe people and scenery to give them life. He did his research to ensure that his characters lived in his novels.
He knew how to tell a story.