Product Description

Two young boys suddenly disappear. One of them, a Zuni, leaves a pool of blood behind. Lt. Joe Leaphorn of the Navajo Tribal Police tracks the brutal killer. Three things complicate the search: an archeological dig, a steel hypodermic needle, and the strange laws of the Zuni. Compelling, terrifying, and highly suspenseful, "Dance Hall of the Dead" never relents from first page til last.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #149896 in Books
• Published on: 1990-03-15
• Released on: 2004-10-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 272 pages

Review
"...as with all of Hillerman's other books on tape, Dance Hall of the Dead is compelling, colorful, and just complex enough to keep you interested, but not confused." -- Catalyst, September 1997

"An author's style has a lot to do with the success of an audio book...One writer whose works on the mark for listeners every time is Tony Hillerman...Hillerman is a former newspaper reporter, and his novels have a journalistic feel. His sentences tend to be straightforward, and they translate well to tape...An editor for Recorded Books said Hillerman's books are "very crisply written, and he leaves a lot to the imagination. Some writers put in too much detail. He leaves a lot of room for the listener."...Actor Michael Ansara, who has portrayed native Americans on television and in films, is the reader for Audio Partners' work. His reading is crisp and clear, with a touch of gravity." -- Indianapolis Star, September 1991

"High entertainment, an aesthetically satisfying glimpse of the still-powerful tribal mysteries." -- The New York Times

About the Author
Tony Hillerman is past president of Mystery Writers of America and has received their Edgar and Grand Master Awards. His other honors include the Center for the American Indian's Ambassador Award, the Silver Spur Award for the best novel set in the West, the Navajo Tribe's Special Friend Award, the National Media Award from the American Anthropological Association, the Public Service Award from the U.S. Department of the Interior, the Nero Wolfe Award, the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Oklahoma Center for the Book, an honorary life membership in the Western Literature Association, and the Grand Prix de Littérature Policiére. In addition to his election to Phi Beta Kappa, Tony Hillerman has been named Doctor of Humane Letters at Arizona State University and at Oregon's Portland State University. He lives with his wife, Marie, in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Customer Reviews

Powerful and mesmerizing; a unique kind of thriller
Tony Hillerman has written a list of novels so distinctively unique that they could classify as a genre unto themselves. With their brilliant depiction of Native American cultures and life in our Western desert, these novels are much more than detective/thrillers. When I first read Hillerman, starting with one of his more recent books, I thought that his mystery, as a mystery, was rather slight. Nevertheless, I was captivated. And as I continued to read, I realized that the reader becomes so caught up in Hillerman's world, so enamored by the ceremonials, religious practices and daily lives of these native people, that one can almost lose sight of the unfolding mystery. Not so, however, wih this early award-winning novel. In this novel, suspense builds to a smashing crescendo, while his portrayal of the Zuni's Dance Hall of the Dead ceremonial is perhaps the most fascinating of all such portrayals.

The story begins with Ernesto Cata, a twelve-year-old Zuni boy, proudly and diligently practicing for his role as Little Fire God, in which he will lead his village and dance an all-night attendance on the Council of the Gods. But, in a practice run, the boy comes face to face with a kachina. An initiated and well-tutored Zuni, Ernesto knows what it means to see a kachina. And suddenly the Little Fire God has disappeared, leaving behind a pool of blood to soak into the desert sand. Then his best friend George Bowlegs, a Navaho, is also missing and Joe Leaphorn of the Navaho Tribal Police is called in to find him. When Leaphorn himself sees a kachina, he remembers a Zuni friend telling him that no one sees this spirit of the Zuni dead unless he himself is about to die. . .And far out on the desert, searching for the Navaho boy who reportedly has gone in search of the kachinas, Leaphorn stumbles into a trap. Shot with a tranquilizer hypodermic he is rendered physically helpless, unable to move a muscle. But his mind and senses are left super-alert and he can hear his stalker coming. . .

The story of! the kachinas and the ceremonial held each year in honor of these benevolent spirits, so they will bring fertility to the seeds and rain to the dry land, gives this early novel a power that Hillerman has not since surpassed. But each of his books widens the window he has given us onto this Native world -- a view that enriches all Americans, while filling us with poignancy for all that has been lost to the American experience.

Among Hillerman's Best
First published in 1973, DANCE HALL OF THE DEAD was and is still considered among the best of Tony Hillerman's "Joe Leaphorn" novels, a series set on Southwestern Native American lands and following the adventures of Lt. Leaphorn as he investigates crimes on the reservation. In this particular novel, Leaphorn, a Navajo, is summoned to Zunni lands to assist in a particularly unpleasant crime: a Zunni teenager's blood has soaked the land, but his body is missing--and so is the Navajo teenager who was with him.

As usual, Hillerman writes in a strong prose voice, and much of the novel's interest stems from his depiction of the character, traditions, and lore of Native Americans who live on the reservation. Unlike some other Hillerman novels, the plot is fairly tight and does indeed live up to its description as a mystery--but even so the mystery here is remarkably transparent; even the most niave reader should be able to spot both killer and motive in the first quarter of the novel. That is unfortunate--but still, Hillerman's expert prose and his portrait of Native American society make DANCE HALL OF THE DEAD an interesting, entertaining, and often informative read. Generally recommended.

GFT, Amazon Reviewer

Hillerman at his best
This is the second book in the "Navajo Detective" series by Tony Hillerman and the first in which detective Joe Leaphorn is the principal charactor.

Dance Hall of the Dead is a sad story. It concerns the murder or disppearance of two boys, a Navajo and a Zuni, and Joe Leaphorn's efforts to find the missing boys. The riddle is entwined with Zuni religious ceremonies which Leaphorn, a Navajo, tries to understand.

Hillerman gives a virtual travelogue of the Zuni and Navajo country of New Mexico and Arizona in the early 1970s when the book was written. Leaphorn is a thoroughly likeable hero, rational, even-tempered, and ethical with a compulsion to get to the bottom of things. Hillerman is a master of creating an exotic atmosphere of Zuni and Navajo culture and ceremonies overlaid by the splendor of the natural setting. With such ornament, it hardly matters that the solution to the mystery itself is not very convincing.

What a great title! If you're a wide-open-spaces-kind-of-a-person Hillerman is unbeatable as a mystery writer with a western twist. In Joe Leaphorn he has created a fictional detective who can take his place among the all-time best.