Leaphorn & Chee #1-#3: The Blessing Way; Dance Hall of the Dead; Listening Woman [J0242]

1989 PB Book-of-the-Month club reprint. With minor wear. Three novels in one edition. The Blessing Way: Homicide is always an abomination, but there is something exceptionally disturbing about the victim discovered in a high lonely place, a corpse with a mouth full of sand, abandoned at a crime scene seemingly devoid of tracks or useful clues. Though it goes against his better judgment, Navajo Tribal Police Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn cannot help but suspect the hand of a supernatural killer. There is palpable evil in the air, and Leaphorn's pursuit of a Wolf-Witch is leading him where even the bravest men fear, on a chilling trail that winds perilously between mysticism and murder.

Dance Hall of the Dead: Two Native-American boys have vanished into thin air, leaving a pool of blood behind them. Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn of the Navajo Tribal Police has no choice but to suspect the very worst, since the blood that stains the parched New Mexican ground once flowed through the veins of one of the missing, a young Zuñi. But his investigation into a terrible crime is being complicated by an important archaeological dig . . . and a steel hypodermic needle. And the unique laws and sacred religious rites of the Zuñi people are throwing impassable roadblocks in Leaphorn's already twisted path, enabling a craven murderer to elude justice or, worse still, to kill again.

Listening Woman: The blind shaman called Listening Woman speaks of witches and restless spirits, of supernatural evil unleashed. But Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn of the Navajo Tribal Police is sure the monster who savagely slaughtered an old man and a teenage girl was human. The solution to a horrific crime is buried somewhere in a dead man's secrets and in the shocking events of a hundred years past. To ignore the warnings of a venerable seer, however, might be reckless foolishness when Leaphorn's investigation leads him farther away from the comprehensible . . . and closer to the most brutally violent confrontation of his career.

From recent Amazon/GoodReads reviews: "Tony Hillerman is the master of slow-paced, but mesmerizing story plots. You know something big is coming and you keep reading to get to the suddenly shocking end. Always a good read!"; "Another great book by Hillerman - where you get to know Detective Leaphorn and see how a logical mind works. Also more in-depth of the Navajo culture."; "An exciting mystery / action story! A story full of interesting characters, and fascinating places. Hillerman does it again!"