Anne Hillerman Books in Order
This page collects Anne Hillerman's books in order, with summaries, Leaphorn & Chee reading order, series background, and guidance on where to start.
Last updated: December 22, 2025
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Publication Order
19 books
Shadow of the Solstice
by Anne Hillerman
2025
Two parallel crises test the Navajo Nation. A fraudulent rehab center traps vulnerable patients, including a grandmother desperate to help her addicted grandson, while Bernadette Manuelito prepares for a high-profile visit and confronts radical environmental protesters targeting uranium extraction on tribal land, forcing hard choices about justice and safety.
Lost Birds
by Anne Hillerman
2024
Now a private investigator, Joe Leaphorn takes two cases: helping a school custodian find his missing singer wife and assisting an adoptee searching for her Navajo birth family. When an explosion devastates a reservation school, Leaphorn, Bernadette Manuelito and Jim Chee discover the mysteries are painfully connected.
The Way of the Bear
by Anne Hillerman
2023
At Utah's Bears Ears, Bernadette Manuelito and Jim Chee confront the puzzling death of a paleontologist who froze near his car and a second killing staged as a home invasion. Fossil theft, blizzards and buried resentments leave both officers fighting to survive as they search for the truth.
The Sacred Bridge
by Anne Hillerman
2022
Jim Chee's reflective trip to Antelope Canyon and Rainbow Bridge turns deadly when he discovers a Navajo rock-art enthusiast floating in Lake Powell, drawing him into questions of looted artifacts and sacred sites. Back in Shiprock, Bernadette Manuelito witnesses a deliberate hit-and-run that leads her into a dangerous cannabis operation on tribal land.
Stargazer
by Anne Hillerman
2021
On a day that already includes serving a warrant, moving cattle and stumbling onto a crime scene, Bernadette Manuelito is asked to help find her former roommate Maya. After Maya confesses to killing her astronomer husband, Bernie doubts the story and follows a trail of secrets tied to the night sky.
The Tale Teller
by Anne Hillerman
2019
Recovering from a head injury, retired lieutenant Joe Leaphorn is hired to find a missing ceremonial dress and silver bracelet donated to the Navajo Nation museum. When a young woman dies outside the library, he, Jim Chee and Bernadette Manuelito uncover links to burglaries and fears of witchcraft.
Cave of Bones
by Anne Hillerman
2018
At a wilderness program for at-risk girls, Bernadette Manuelito confronts chaos: a missing instructor and a teen who claims to have found a cave full of bones. Searching the lava badlands and a linked cold case, Bernie faces human evil while Jim Chee juggles family trouble closer to home.
Song of the Lion
by Anne Hillerman
2017
When a car bomb explodes outside a high school basketball game, killing a young man, Bernadette Manuelito joins the investigation while Jim Chee is assigned to protect an attorney mediating a fierce fight over a Grand Canyon resort, where politics, profit and old grievances converge.
Rock with Wings
by Anne Hillerman
2015
Jim Chee and Bernadette Manuelito hope a favor for a relative will double as a quick getaway, but separate assignments in Shiprock and Monument Valley pull them into a missing-woman case, a botched drug bust, suspicious fires and a controversial solar project on Navajo land.
Spider Woman's Daughter
by Anne Hillerman
2013
Over breakfast with fellow Navajo officers, Bernadette Manuelito sees her mentor, Lt. Joe Leaphorn, gunned down outside a restaurant and is barred from the case as an eyewitness. Refusing to stay on the sidelines, she and husband Jim Chee follow a cold trail that may explain the attack.
Tony Hillerman's Landscapes
by Anne Hillerman
2012
Southwest map and field guide that pinpoints many of the real landscapes Tony Hillerman wrote about, with brief commentary from Anne Hillerman and Don Strel to help readers and travelers locate key canyons, mesas, trading posts and towns from the Leaphorn and Chee mysteries.
Done in the Sun
by Anne Hillerman
2012
Hands-on science book for kids that uses simple experiments and crafts with household objects to show how sunlight can heat, move, and change everyday things, turning solar energy into an easy, playful part of learning.
Gardens of Santa Fe
by Anne Hillerman
2010
Visual tour of Santa Fe's private courtyards and public gardens, combining Don Strel's photography with Hillerman's text on desert plants, water-wise techniques and the challenges of creating lush, bird-friendly oases in a high-desert climate.
Tony Hillerman's Landscape
by Anne Hillerman
2009
Photo-rich companion to Tony Hillerman's Navajo mysteries that pairs Anne Hillerman's essays with Don Strel's documentary images, offering synopses, quotes and travel notes for the New Mexico and Arizona locations that frame Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee's investigations.
Santa Fe Flavors
by Anne Hillerman
2009
Drawing on her work as a restaurant critic, Hillerman profiles more than fifty Santa Fe eateries and their chefs, pairing short stories about each place with recipes so readers can discover local favorites and cook New Mexican dishes at home.
Insiders' Guide to Santa Fe
by Anne Hillerman
1998
Comprehensive guidebook to Santa Fe and northern New Mexico that covers history, neighborhoods, museums, galleries, outdoor excursions, festivals, lodging, and restaurants, written from a local perspective for visitors and newcomers planning time in the City Different.
Ride the Wind, USA to Africa
by Anne Hillerman
1995
Narrative nonfiction account of a daring trans-Atlantic gas balloon flight by Richard Abruzzo and Troy Bradley, following their journey from launch in the United States to landfall in Africa and the physical, technical, and weather challenges they face.
Children's Guide to Santa Fe
by Anne Hillerman
1984
Family-friendly guide that opens with a child-focused history of Santa Fe, then points kids and parents toward museums, parks, hikes, seasonal events and day trips, including nearby pueblos and Albuquerque, with practical tips to make exploring the region fun for children.
The Great Taos Bank Robbery and Other True Stories
by Anne Hillerman
1973
New edition of Tony Hillerman's classic collection of seventeen nonfiction essays about life in New Mexico, from bungled bank jobs to desert explorations, featuring a new foreword by Anne Hillerman and photographs that highlight the Land of Enchantment's humor, history, and everyday magic.
Where should I start?
If you want to jump into Anne Hillerman's Navajo mysteries: Spider Woman's Daughter Rock with Wings Song of the Lion
If you prefer the latest Leaphorn, Chee & Manuelito cases: Stargazer The Sacred Bridge The Way of the Bear Lost Birds Shadow of the Solstice
If you're curious about the real landscapes behind the stories: Tony Hillerman's Landscape Tony Hillerman's Landscapes The Great Taos Bank Robbery and Other True Stories
If you enjoy New Mexico travel and food writing: Insiders' Guide to Santa Fe Children's Guide to Santa Fe Santa Fe Flavors Gardens of Santa Fe
If you want the full Leaphorn & Chee journey from the beginning: Tony Hillerman's The Blessing Way Spider Woman's Daughter Rock with Wings
Author bio
Anne Hillerman was born in Lawton, Oklahoma, in 1949 and grew up in a big, story-loving family as the eldest of six children of novelist Tony Hillerman and his wife, Marie Unzner.cite Many of her childhood memories mix books, newsroom talk and long car trips through the deserts and mountains of the Southwest.
She studied journalism at the University of New Mexico and spent more than two decades in newspapers, working as a reporter, arts editor and editorial page editor in Santa Fe and Albuquerque.cite Along the way she covered education, the legislature, the arts and, eventually, restaurants, learning how to listen closely and turn ordinary days into clear, engaging stories.
Alongside the newsroom deadlines she began writing nonfiction books rooted in New Mexico. Early titles like Done in the Sun, Ride the Wind, USA to Africa, Children's Guide to Santa Fe and Insiders' Guide to Santa Fe grew out of her curiosity about science experiments, ballooning adventures, family travel and the layered history of her home state.cite
As a longtime restaurant critic she explored Northern New Mexico's food scene, work that eventually became Santa Fe Flavors, a blend of restaurant portraits and recipes. With her photographer husband Don Strel she created visual celebrations such as Gardens of Santa Fe and Tony Hillerman's Landscape, pairing her essays with his photographs to capture private courtyards, public gardens and the Four Corners landscapes that shaped her father's fiction.cite
Those projects let her map the places and stories she loved long before she ever put a detective on the page.
After Tony Hillerman died in 2008, she decided that the best way to honor him was to keep Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee on the job. Her first novel, Spider Woman's Daughter, moved Navajo officer Bernadette Manuelito into the spotlight as she witnesses an attack on Leaphorn and refuses to stand aside; the book won a Spur Award for best first novel and reached national bestseller lists.cite
Since then she has continued the Leaphorn, Chee & Manuelito mysteries with Rock with Wings, Song of the Lion, Cave of Bones, The Tale Teller, Stargazer, The Sacred Bridge, The Way of the Bear, Lost Birds and Shadow of the Solstice.cite Across these books she mixes police work with questions about land use, fossil hunting, energy development, missing and adopted Native children, and the pressures of modern life on Navajo families, always grounding the puzzles in relationships, landscapes and community.
The mysteries move at a steady pace, but her real focus is how people stay honest, loyal and hopeful under pressure.
Off the page, Hillerman has spent years building community for other writers. She co-founded the Wordharvest Writers Workshops and the Tony Hillerman Writers Conference, helped launch a prize for first mystery novels set in the Southwest, and has taught and spoken widely about both craft and the business side of publishing.cite
She now splits her time between Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Tucson, Arizona, making frequent trips to the Navajo Nation for research and events.cite When she is not writing, she reads, cooks, skis, hikes and walks her dog, still drawing energy from the same high-desert light that fills her novels. The world she and her father created on the page also lives on in the television drama Dark Winds, but on the printed page she keeps finding new corners of that landscape—and of her characters—to explore.cite
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