“Here at last we have a biography of one of the true masters of detective fiction, and one of the most popular and perspicacious writers ever to call the Desert Southwest home. In this scrupulous work, James McGrath Morris artfully guides us into Tony Hillerman’s personal and literary worlds—and taps into the peculiar magic of this beloved novelist’s work. Diehard fans and neophytes alike will gain intriguing insights into how Hillerman was able to spin those unforgettable mysteries set in the red rock kingdom of the Navajo.”—Hampton Sides, author of Ghost Soldiers: The Epic Account of World War II’s Greatest Rescue MissionFrom James McGrath Morris—author of superb biographies—comes this remarkably rich, absorbing, and varied life of beloved mystery writer Tony Hillerman. With his canny eye for the telling detail, Morris tracks the author's evolution from a poor Oklahoma boy growing up alongside members of the Citizen Potawatomie Nation to a reporter plying the streets of small towns and New Mexico’s state capital, a journey also marked by harrowing combat in the Battle of the Bulge. Tony Hillerman is packed with insight into how a journalist revamped the mystery genre even as he became one of its most original and gifted practitioners, introducing readers to the extraordinary lifeways and beliefs of the Navajo and other Southwestern peoples. Providing a deft and nuanced look at issues surrounding cultural appropriation, this is a biography that becomes, as Hillerman termed facts transformed by imagination, “the stuff of art.”—Caroline Fraser, author of Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder“James McGrath Morris’s Tony Hillerman is beautiful and fascinating biography, not just the life of a remarkable writer but also a vivid depiction of the world that Hillerman grew up in—the American West, ranch and church, the war—and his career as a reporter and novelist that culminated, late in life, in international fame and best-sellerdom. Hillerman was a huge inspiration to me as a young writer. I truly love this book.”—Douglas Preston, author of The Lost City of the Monkey God and the Agent Pendergast series“A towering figure in the realm of mystery fiction like Tony Hillerman is worthy of a biography of monumental proportions, a book that can encompass the grace, talent, and humanity of not only the man but his incredible body of work. James McGrath Morris’s Tony Hillerman: A Life is that book—one of the most thoughtful, detailed, and captivating biographies I’ve read in a very long time.”—Craig Johnson, author of the Walt Longmire Mysteries
