- Dance Hall of the Dead
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Dance Hall of the Dead 
1st editionJim Chee/Joe Leaphorn Navajo Tribal Police SeriesAuthor Tony Hillerman Country United States Language English Genre Detective Publisher Harper and Row Published 1973 Media type Print (hardcover and paperback) Preceded by The Blessing Way, 1970 Followed by Listening Woman, 1978 Dance Hall Of The Dead is the second of the Navajo Tribal Police series of crime fiction novels by Tony Hillerman. Centered around the character of police Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn, Dance Hall of the Dead is, like many of Hillerman's books, set on the Navajo Reservation in the Four Corners region of the American Southwest. Themes of the book include the Zuni religion and hostility between the Navajo and the Zuni.
Contents
Plot summary
When a young Zuni boy and his Navajo friend go missing, Lieutenant Leaphorn is called in by the Zuni Tribal Police to search for George Bowlegs, the missing Navajo boy. When Ernesto Cata, Bowlegs' Zuni friend, is found murdered, the search for Bowlegs takes on even greater significance.
Characters
On-going series characters appearing in this novel include:
- Joe Leaphorn, Navajo Tribal Police Lieutenant
- Emma Leaphorn, Leaphorn's wife and a Navajo traditionalist
Other characters introduced in this novel include:
- Baker, drug enforcement agent
- Cecil Bowlegs, George Bowlegs' younger brother
- Chester Reynolds, Professor or Archaeology and graduate advisor to Isaacs
- Ernesto Cata, young Zuni boy
- Father Ingles, priest at the Saint Michael's Mission School which George attended
- George Bowlegs, young Navajo boy, friend of Cata
- Halsey, leader of the Hippie commune where Suzanne lives
- John O'Malley, FBI agent
- Shorty Bowlegs, George Bowlegs' father
- Suzanne, a caring young woman, friend of George Bowlegs, living in a Hippie commune
- Ted Isaacs, a rather homely graduate student of archaeology, excavating Professor Reynold's Folsom sites
Awards
Dance Hall Of The Dead received the 1973 Edgar Award for Best Novel.[1]
See also
References
Categories:- 1973 novels
- Novels by Tony Hillerman
- Edgar Award winning works
- 1970s novel stubs
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