Sacred Clowns (Joe Leaphorn/Jim Chee Novels) (Mass Market Paperback)

by Tony Hillerman (Author) "AT FIRST, Officer Jim Chee had felt foolish sitting on the roof of the house of some total stranger..." (more)
Key Phrases: sacred clowns, kachina dance, tribal police, Jim Chee, Janet Pete, Eric Dorsey (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Telling his story the Navajo way, Hillerman ( Coyote Waits ) fully develops the background of the cases pursued by Navajo Tribal Policemen, Lt. Joe Leaphorn and Officer Jim Chee, so that the resolutions--personal and professional--ring true with gratifying inevitability. A white woodshop teacher at St. Bonaventure's mission school is bludgeoned to death in his schoolroom; a student, a young boy from Tano Pueblo, is missing. The boy's uncle, a koshare, or sacred clown, in a kachina dance, is stabbed to death right after the ceremony in which he has symbolically warned of the dangers of selling sacred objects; an old man is killed on the highway in a hit and run. Chee, who is apprehensive about working for Leaphorn, tries to locate the missing boy, whose grandmother is on the Navajo Tribal Council, and to learn who ran down the old man, but he is distracted by his growing attachment to lawyer Janet Pete and by his desire to be a hataalii , or shaman, as well as a cop. Leaphorn searches for clues while simultaneously grieving for his wife who died 18 months earlier and considering his relationship with linguistics professor Louisa Bourebonette. Jurisdictional conflicts with the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Apache County Sheriff's Office reflect the cultural differences that obtain among tribes and clans as this first Leaphorn story in three years, steeped in Navajo lore and traditions, draws to its convincing conclusions. 350,000 first printing; major ad/promo; Mystery Guild selection; Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club alternates .
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From School Library Journal
YA-In Hillerman's latest mystery set in the Southwest, Navajo tribal policemen Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee work together with a runaway student as the only link between two seemingly unrelated murders-one of a well-liked art teacher in his classroom on the reservation and the other the uncle of the runaway boy. The author skillfully employs the elements of detection and routine police work while providing readers with an intriguing glimpse of Navajo culture. The relationships between the officers and between the other well-defined characters give depth to the story, which is spiced with both men's romantic interests. The thought processes of the characters are accessible; the narrative holds interest and moves smoothly; and the themes of good and evil, greed and generosity, ethical considerations and environmental issues provide conflict. Unique and masterful.
Linda Sudduth, W.T. Woodson High School, Fairfax, VA
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: HarperTorch (June 10, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061092606
• ISBN-13: 978-0061092602
• Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 4.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #210,835 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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• This is item 8 in The Joe Leaphorn Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the biggest highlights in an outstanding series., December 6, 2001

By	Themis-Athena (from somewhere between California and Germany) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

Against his editor's counsel, Tony Hillerman switched from nonfiction to fiction writing over 30 years ago, with a story ultimately entitled "The Blessing Way;" introducing an (at the time) new type of hero and a new setting to the realm of the mystery novel - a Navajo policeman named Joe Leaphorn and the world of the Diné, i.e. [Navajo] "people," living on the rugged plains, deserts and mountain ridges of the southwestern Four
Corners Country. From the first book on, Hillerman's novels drew in equal parts on the author's natural gift as a storyteller, his upbringing within and hence, intimate knowledge of the world he describes, and his training as a writer; all of these elements blending into fascinating storylines and vivid and accurate portrayals of the land and its people.

Based on the success of his Leaphorn series, Tony Hillerman then created a new hero and (initially: a second) series set in Dinetah (Navajo country): tribal policeman Jim Chee. But while Joe Leaphorn was married and methodical and seemed, over the course of the years, to have found a way to harmonize Navajo traditions and 20th century American life, the younger Chee, unmarried, initially trained to be a shaman and deeply traditional, yet at the same time drawn to women living in the white man's world, was struggling to find that same sense of balance.

Whether or not Hillerman's unequal heroes were always meant to meet, they eventually did so in "Skinwalkers" and have been solving crimes together ever since, and their disparate tempers and approaches to police work add another level of tension to the stories, in addition to the cultural differences between the Navajo and the world(s) surrounding them, and the tribal policemen's perpetual clashes with the federal authorities. In more than one novel, Hillerman transcends the world of the Navajo, bringing in and contrasting to it the views and traditions of other tribes of the Southwest, not all of them historically on friendly terms with the Navajo (e.g. the Hopi in "The Dark Wind," the Ute in "Hunting Badger" and the Zuni in "Dance Hall of the Dead"). In "Sacred Clowns," Chee and Leaphorn (who has long since gained a reputation as the "Legendary Lieutenant") must delve into the society of Tano Pueblo to solve the murder of a teacher at a Navajo school, which seems to be connected to a death in the pueblo. As they dig through layers and layers of secrets, they again face the skepticism of a society that has had its "issues" with the Diné in the past. Yet, they slowly unravel the mystery surrounding the Kachina dancers ("sacred clowns") at the heart of the story and finally come to an, as always, surprising conclusion.

If you have never read a book by Hillerman and it's important to you to get to know the main characters of a series as they develop over the course of time, you'll have no choice but to go all the way back to "The Blessing Way" and read your way through to this particular book (which in a way makes sense, of course and, given the caliber of these stories and their author, should be a lot of fun, too). But like every good writer, Hillerman provides enough background for Leaphorn and Chee for even a first-time reader to be able to understand and appreciate his heroes and the things that drive them from the context of any of their stories - and I'll almost guarantee that this won't remain your only Hillerman book for a long time anyway: you'll be hooked midway through the tale at the very latest and will want to know more about the Legendary Lieutenant, Sergeant Chee and their people as soon as possible and before long, will find yourself swallowing every other book about them, too. Oh, by the way ... they are still at work together, never mind that Joe Leaphorn retired from the police a couple of years ago; so you should probably also be prepared for new installments. Yet, while I have no doubt that those will all be good reads (so far, there isn't one weak book in the series), "Sacred Clowns" will forever remain one of my favorite stories about Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn and Sergeant Jim Chee.

Also recommended:
The Joe Leaphorn Mysteries: The Blessing Way/Dance Hall of the Dead/Listening Woman
The Jim Chee Mysteries: Three Classic Hillerman Mysteries Featuring Officer Jim Chee: The Dark
Tony Hillerman: The Leaphorn & Chee Novels : Skinwalkers, A Thief of Time, Coyote Waits
American Mystery! Special: Skinwalkers
A Thief of Time
Mystery! Coyote Waits
The Great Taos Bank Robbery: And Other True Stories of the Southwest
Seldom Disappointed: A Memoir
Navajoland: A Native Son Shares his Legacy (Special Scenic Collection)
Here, Now, and Always: Voices of the First Peoples of the Southwest

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Cultural portrait more compelling than the mystery..., June 19, 2000

By	Gregor von Kallahann - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

I'm not really a mystery buff, so when my book discussion group chose this title to read, I was a little wary. But someone who had read several Hillerman titles recommended his works as much for the cultural portraits they provide as for the mystery element. With SACRED CLOWNS the cultural component is strong indeed: in fact, you could say that the murder mystery is mainly a pretext to explore Navajo and Pueblo life more deeply. Cultural lore comes first, and wrapped up in the text of a pulpy detective novel, it may seem easier to take than, say, a anthropological tome or a socio-political screed.

I found the murder story sketchy and confusing. Perhaps regular readers of the genre would disagree. What I did find compelling were the principal characters, tribal police officers Jim Chee and Joe Leaphorn, their inner conflicts and their attempts to make sense out of the cultural conflicts they experience. They, and some of the secondary characters as well, are well developed characters, whom you come to care about. What makes the mystery storyline a little less resonant, I suspect, is that we never really get to know much about the victim or ultimately, the murderers themselves. The ending is a bit of a surprise, but primarily because it involves characters we scarcely got to know at all.

Still, I wouldn't rule out reading more Hillerman. As a more or less painless way of acquainting oneself with American Indian culture, this novel can't be beat. Well worth checking out--if not at the cash register, or via email, at least consider borrowing it from the local libary.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A cultural tour, December 31, 2002

By	Judith W. Colombo (Deposit, NY United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Review
By
Judith Woolcock Colombo

Sacred Clowns set within the context of Navajo culture and using the overwhelming physical presence of the Southwest as backdrop, mixes ethnicity, human greed, and romance into an intriguing mystery.

The novel reunites Navajo Detective Jim Chee and Lt. Joe Leaphorn. Chee now part of Leaphorn's two-man Special Investigations Office has been assigned to follow Delmar Kanitewa, a runaway student and grandson of a powerful member of the tribal council.

Chee follows the boy to the Tano Pueblo for a ceremony of koshares, sacred clowns, only to see the ceremony interrupted by a murder. The boy, who is in full site of Chee during the murder at the Pueblo, vanishes. Later it is discovered that he may also know something about another murder, that of shop- teacher Eric Dorsey.

With the boy's disappearance, we are left with the mystery of how exactly the two murders are connected. However, these murders are just the beginning of an intricate plot that involves an unsolved hit and run case, political and religious scandal, and romance for both Chee and Leaphorn.

This is a well-woven story that brings us into the hearts and minds of Hillerman's two very different heroes. The contrast between the lives and characters of the men from their two different methods of problem solving to romancing the women of their choice is as much a part of the story as the mystery itself.

I enjoyed this story very much and was particularly intrigued by the aspects of Navajo culture and tribal law that ran throughout the story. There were some aspects of the methods used, especially by Chee that as both a mystery writer and wife of a retired Sergeant of Detectives, I found questionable. However, I realized that Hillerman is writing as much about a culture as he is about solving a mystery. Police officers like all of us are defined by their culture and act within its bounds.

This is a very enjoyable mystery and I highly recommend it.