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Listening Woman
Listening Woman is a crime novel by American writer Tony Hillerman, the third in the Joe Leaphorn/Jim Chee Navajo Tribal Police series, first published in 1978. The novel features Joe Leaphorn.
Pursuing what begins as a routine police call, Leaphorn is nearly killed by the driver of a car. He is then entangled in a tense hostage situation in the caves near the San Juan River.
The novel was nominated for the 1979 "Best Mystery Novel" Edgar Award. It was well-received as "a compelling and often chilling book". and noted for "unselfconsciously drawing on the best of two clashing cultures."
Hosteen Tso, patriarch of the Tso Family, has a Listening Woman (a Navajo medicine woman) named Margaret Cigarette, brought to his hogan to learn what ceremony will best improve his health after he suspects he has a ghost sickness. Margaret is accompanied by her niece, Anna Atcitty, who is apprenticing under her and acting as an assistant as Margaret is also blind and elderly. Hosteen Tso is dismissive and vague about the questioning by Margaret Cigarette as she attempts to diagnose what specifically ails Tso, with him only admitting to finding a sand painting having been disturbed. Tso reveals that he cannot be specific because he had promised his great grandfather to keep a secret and he cannot break that promise even in his illness. Before Margaret leaves to listen to the mountain for the proper ceremony to perform, Tso asks if she know the way which a man may send a letter to his grandson who has left the Navajo reservation. She tells him she doesn't know how to send such a letter and leaves the hogan with the help of her niece. Once she finds a suitable place to ponder Tso's situation, Anna leaves her to return to the hogan. After listening to the mountain and preparing her advice, she calls for her niece to help navigate back to the hogan but gets no response and so she returns after some effort to find both Tso and Anna have been murdered by an unknown assailant.
Some months later, Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn of Navajo Reservation Police is returning from a Kinaalda ceremony with a man who escaped arrest earlier. While on the road, a car at very high speed, drives by them but slows upon seeing Leaphorn's police truck's flashing lights. Once Leaphorn is at the driver side of the car, the driver attempts to run him over with the vehicle, but Leaphorn moves away in time and is merely grazed. Leaphorn is only able to catch a glimpse of the driver, who wore gold rimmed glasses, had black hair with other Navajo features. His prisoner had also seen a huge dog in the back seat. In an attempt to capture this man, Leaphorn's prisoner manages to slip away, and Leaphorn is only able to find the abandoned vehicle off the side of the road, leaving Leaphorn to return to town empty handed and frustrated.
Leaphorn is scolded by his captain for losing his prisoner, but his captain allows him to continue working without formal punishment in exchange for Leaphorn promising to assist with an odd informal request from the Bureau of Indian Affairs. A wealthy friend of an agent in the BIA has a daughter, named Theodora Addams, who has traveled to the reservation for an unknown reason and her father wants the Navajo Police to keep an eye on without arising suspicion of the request. Leaphorn promising to agreement with an additional request of his own.
The experience with the driver with gold rim glasses, who he now refers to as "Gold Rims", has caused Leaphorn to recall a case where a group of Native American extremists, called the Buffalo Society, had robbed an armored truck and had made off with a large sum of money, with only one of the groups being captured. He wishes to follow up with this case, which leads have all seemingly tried up with nothing left but spotty rumors of sightings of a helicopter in the area which matches the description of the helicopter was used by the escaped extremists after the robbery to make their escape. His captain agrees and Leaphorn begins rerunning leads to find the connection between the robbery and his run in with Gold Rims while keeping an eye out for Theodora Addams.
After searching through the reports of sightings over the past year since the robbery, Leaphorn has a hunch that the sightings circle around the Hogan of Hosteen Tso and feels that the murders of Hosteen Tso and Anna Atcitty may be related to the Buffalo Society somehow.
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Listening Woman
Listening Woman is a crime novel by American writer Tony Hillerman, the third in the Joe Leaphorn/Jim Chee Navajo Tribal Police series, first published in 1978. The novel features Joe Leaphorn.
Pursuing what begins as a routine police call, Leaphorn is nearly killed by the driver of a car. He is then entangled in a tense hostage situation in the caves near the San Juan River.
The novel was nominated for the 1979 "Best Mystery Novel" Edgar Award. It was well-received as "a compelling and often chilling book". and noted for "unselfconsciously drawing on the best of two clashing cultures."
Hosteen Tso, patriarch of the Tso Family, has a Listening Woman (a Navajo medicine woman) named Margaret Cigarette, brought to his hogan to learn what ceremony will best improve his health after he suspects he has a ghost sickness. Margaret is accompanied by her niece, Anna Atcitty, who is apprenticing under her and acting as an assistant as Margaret is also blind and elderly. Hosteen Tso is dismissive and vague about the questioning by Margaret Cigarette as she attempts to diagnose what specifically ails Tso, with him only admitting to finding a sand painting having been disturbed. Tso reveals that he cannot be specific because he had promised his great grandfather to keep a secret and he cannot break that promise even in his illness. Before Margaret leaves to listen to the mountain for the proper ceremony to perform, Tso asks if she know the way which a man may send a letter to his grandson who has left the Navajo reservation. She tells him she doesn't know how to send such a letter and leaves the hogan with the help of her niece. Once she finds a suitable place to ponder Tso's situation, Anna leaves her to return to the hogan. After listening to the mountain and preparing her advice, she calls for her niece to help navigate back to the hogan but gets no response and so she returns after some effort to find both Tso and Anna have been murdered by an unknown assailant.
Some months later, Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn of Navajo Reservation Police is returning from a Kinaalda ceremony with a man who escaped arrest earlier. While on the road, a car at very high speed, drives by them but slows upon seeing Leaphorn's police truck's flashing lights. Once Leaphorn is at the driver side of the car, the driver attempts to run him over with the vehicle, but Leaphorn moves away in time and is merely grazed. Leaphorn is only able to catch a glimpse of the driver, who wore gold rimmed glasses, had black hair with other Navajo features. His prisoner had also seen a huge dog in the back seat. In an attempt to capture this man, Leaphorn's prisoner manages to slip away, and Leaphorn is only able to find the abandoned vehicle off the side of the road, leaving Leaphorn to return to town empty handed and frustrated.
Leaphorn is scolded by his captain for losing his prisoner, but his captain allows him to continue working without formal punishment in exchange for Leaphorn promising to assist with an odd informal request from the Bureau of Indian Affairs. A wealthy friend of an agent in the BIA has a daughter, named Theodora Addams, who has traveled to the reservation for an unknown reason and her father wants the Navajo Police to keep an eye on without arising suspicion of the request. Leaphorn promising to agreement with an additional request of his own.
The experience with the driver with gold rim glasses, who he now refers to as "Gold Rims", has caused Leaphorn to recall a case where a group of Native American extremists, called the Buffalo Society, had robbed an armored truck and had made off with a large sum of money, with only one of the groups being captured. He wishes to follow up with this case, which leads have all seemingly tried up with nothing left but spotty rumors of sightings of a helicopter in the area which matches the description of the helicopter was used by the escaped extremists after the robbery to make their escape. His captain agrees and Leaphorn begins rerunning leads to find the connection between the robbery and his run in with Gold Rims while keeping an eye out for Theodora Addams.
After searching through the reports of sightings over the past year since the robbery, Leaphorn has a hunch that the sightings circle around the Hogan of Hosteen Tso and feels that the murders of Hosteen Tso and Anna Atcitty may be related to the Buffalo Society somehow.