Sacred Clowns audiobook

Sacred Clowns is Tony Hillerman at his very best. Both Leaphorn and Chee are at a personal crossroad in their lives while attempting to solve two crimes which may or may not be related. A complex mystery is interwoven with the care befitting a sacred blanket as we learn about the Navajo and their beliefs.That crossroad for both men is fully explored during this one, each man's loneliness and their individual efforts to end it, poignantly painted by Hillerman in a mystery as good as any he ever penned. Those who relish the way he educates the reader about Native American beliefs while entertaining us with a good mystery will not be disappointed. Perhaps more than any of his novels, Sacred Clowns gives us a better understanding of why the Navajo have survived, while so many other great tribes have all but disappeared.Chee's new assignment working directly for Leaphorn gets off to a shaky start when the former allows a missing boy to escape during a Tano ceremony soon after locating him. It is the boy's elusive nature, and a murder during the ceremony that kick off one of the most satisfying mysteries in this fabulous series. Leaphorn is still trying to move on after a terrible loss, and Chee is worried Janet may have a tie to his clan somewhere which would put an end to their romance.On the mystery side, a second murder turns this story into a complex puzzle which has Leaphorn and Chee going in different directions. Chee's carelessness at one point will even result in Leaphorn's suspension. Leaphorn's feelings regarding young Chee's conflicting spirit, torn between Navajo tradition and his career as a Navajo Tribal Policeman, are explored here as well.Chee will eventually weigh Navajo justice against the secular law he is sworn to uphold, and come to a startling decision. There is need and loneliness here for both men, Chee trying to begin, and Leaphorn attempting to start over. There is a depth and understanding mingling effortlessly in Sacred Clowns, a mystery engrossing enough to be of merit on its own.We've come to expect a lot of Hillerman's series, and this one really delivers. That magic blend of mystery and Native American beliefs, coupled with likable and very human characters is on glorious display in this one. The mystery is excellent, and you will come away from this one with a greater understanding of the Navajo and, perhaps, humanity. Highly recommended.

Total immersion in the unique and fascinating culture of our Indian southwest. Strong but imperfect characters struggling with moral issues. The kind of romantic interactions I like to read about (and write about ... and live). And, oh yes, an excellent detective story. Why did I wait so long between Hillerman novels?

The late Mr. Hillerman really knew how to tell a story. I miss his output.From his home base in Albuquerque, he takes all these disparate parts, spreads them all over the four corners area and has his characters running all over the place making unlikely links to all the crimes.Is a joy to watch the Native American police work out the logic and motives behind the murders and theft exactly like Hercule Poirot.This is the third in a long list of both fiction and non-fiction that award-winning Mr. Hillerman created over many years. Some of them were made into TV movies.I think I have read all his fiction now, and can start on the nonan-fiction.

Finally! This is the book I have been waiting for in the series :) It has Leaphorn and Chee working together!!!! The love interests are coming around and the guys are becoming human. It is still interesting how all involved say no one ever tells me anything...ha ha ha Like there are secrets to be kept or you might cross someone's line if you give out any of your information. SighThis is my favorite of the series so far.

The winter of 2007 is a shaman's curse/a ravenous and cruel apparition/stalking mesas and piñon forests/on the high desert of New Mexico/The wind arises out of the Northwest/bringing pain and hunger/stealing color, warmth, and lives/In the hogan we burn pine and cedar/day and night/melt snow for drinking water/ration the last of the mutton stew and coffee/Stock tanks are frozen solid/Animals die huddled together in ravines/Crystalline etchings on ice and window glass/mock our frailty/with useless beauty/ We wait/and wait/This morning a National Guard helicopter/like a great thunderbird/brought food and news of neighbors/"I dont know why you live out here"/the white pilot said/He didn't hear over the rotor's chop/when I explained that we belong to the land/That we came here with Badger's help/out of the ha'axna, the emergence place/and we call this world/Glittering World, Changeable World/Thought and knowledge, light and dark/warm and cold, birth and death/are given to us/We live in bituminous silence/But we belong to the land

An excellent blend of storylines and characters - I really enjoy the writing and the background information on Navajo traditions that Mr Hillerman weaves into his stories. Great characters and a pleasure to watch the story unfold.

Tony Hillerman had been writing mysteries for over 20 years by the time he got around to Sacred Clowns. He was on top form, though maybe a little less “poetic” and a little more “didactic” than earlier on? In his earliest books it sometimes seemed as if he were writing for the Dinee as well as about them. A disapproving elderly (Dinee English for “old person”) might say “he behaves like he’s got no family,” without further explanation for outsiders of the broader cultural implications of that common, disparaging comment. Relaxed conversations would drift on for page after page, without asides on the nature of Dinee storytelling. Perhaps an editor suggested Anglo readers needed to feel less like outsiders?By contrast with most other Hillerman mysteries, Pueblo culture (“Tano,” probably better known as Tewa or Hopi) figures prominently in the plotting here, alongside the customary Dinee. With both peoples, cultural details are not simply local color but help to drive plot. The Pueblo black-and-white striped koshare or “sacred clowns” are comical tellers of uncomfortable truths. (E.g., at a recent ceremony at Ohkay Owingeh pueblo, their antics concerned child abuse among Catholic clergy.) In this case, one such truth prompts two murders, whose investigation is hindered in interesting ways by Tewa traditions of secrecy, both within the community and (especially) within the men’s religious societies. Aspects of Dinee cosmology are central to the “solving” of another crime: a potentially insoluble hit-and-run on the Dinee reservation. The sorting out of that second crime in terms of the essential Dinee concept of hozhoo (beauty, balance, symmetry, rightness) is interesting to think about in an Anglo legal system based on a minimum of law, observed absolutely (at least in theory).The Dinee-Anglo cultural contrasts and confusions play out in Hillerman’s usual interesting and amusing ways. E.g., half-Anglo (Janet Peet’s) and Cheyenne (Blizzard’s) incomprehension of Dinee delight during a screening of John Ford’s Cheyenne Autumn, in which Dinee extras, dressed up in bucksin and feathers, supposedly sing Cheyenne laments, but in fact perform songs from what Hillerman calls a “Girl Dance” (actually, a circle dance of a type called nezhnotaha). (The same thing happens, in fact, in Ford’s The Searchers where, in a tight spot, John Wayne identifies a Comanche, impending “Death Song,” but Dinee extras on screen once again sing a nezhnotaha) This is also the first time Leaphorn and Jim Chee are discovering how to work together up close and personal. Leaphorn, his wife no longer there (the Dinee probably wouldn’t say “dead,” as Hillerman does), is becoming more involved with his new, anthropologist lady friend, while Chee is hot and bothered over Janet Peet (who, let’s face it, we know isn’t right for him). Given Chee’s attachment to tribal traditions, it’s a little hard to believe he’d have waited this long to raise the supremely important issue of his and Janet’s respective clans, an aspect of Dinee tradition that drives what proves to be an unusually prominent romantic sub-plot this time. Criminal issues get resolved handily enough by the end; the romantic ones remain unsettled.

The beauty of this series is that it’s so much more than a set of detective stories. Hillerman, in his memoir Seldom Disappointed, tells how he first became fascinated by Navajo culture. Wounded toward the end of WWII, he was waiting in a hospital in Europe to be sent home, one of few soldiers were left. He made friends with a fellow patient, Navajo man, who told him about the ceremony his family would arrange for him when he got home, the Enemy Way. Its healing purpose was to bring warriors back into balance and harmony, hozho. Sacred Clowns is a story of people, culture, place, history, love and family, in which the protagonists are Navajo police dealing with three deaths and finding a runaway teenaged boy. The theme underlying all of it is the Navajo way, hozho, the need for it within a person’s soul and within a community.Officer Jim Chee is a strongly traditional young man, which brings him into inner conflict as a policeman, and as a man who has to live in the modern world. His values lead him to support an environmental cause, to seek advice from tribal elders on his hope to marry a woman of uncertain clan history, and to take the Navajo way of handling a difficult case that he solves.This book is gentle for a murder mystery. The violence takes place offstage, and neither Leaphorn or Chee is involved in any life-threatening situation during the course of their detective work. The process of solving the crimes is compelling without that. The private lives of both men are also central to the story, as they get closer to the women in their lives—a poignant transition for the widower Leaphorn.Hillerman the master craftsman fascinates me. He wraps up a plot thread concerning a missing half-Navajo half-Tano Pueblo boy with a conversation between the boy’s grandmother and Joe Leaphorn, before Leaphorn finally gets the boy to talk. The grandmother’s words are elided with the line “Leaphorn listened,” every time, and then he explains the next thing to the grandmother. Perfect in both rhythm and content. Her words aren’t needed. His reassurances are enough, and those words, Leaphorn listened, repeated in that way, say so much about his character.Hillerman’s choice to create a fictitious Pueblo makes sense. I once heard Taos musician Robert Mirabal say that secret and sacred, to the Pueblo people, mean the same thing. Hillerman respects that. He sets part of the story at his fictitious Tano Pueblo, so that a murder doesn’t take place during a community religious ceremony at a real place. The description of this Pueblo and its people is perfect nonetheless, one of his many living and vivid New Mexico moments. These lines stood out for me, as a New Mexican who knows the setting well. “She led them across the hard-packed yard toward an adobe. It slouched under an immense cottonwood which looked almost as old as the building. A fringe of ragweeds and Russian thistle growing on its dirt roof gave it a disreputable, unshaven appearance. But the paint on the window frames was a fresh turquoise blue and geraniums were blooming in boxes beside the door.” Been there, seen that. Loved it.I read this book many years ago, and it’s as good now as it was then—somehow, even better a second time.

My admiration for Hillerman just grows and grows.I'm a passionate reader of mysteries. Whenever there is a "back story" I read from the beginning. Sacred Clowns is Hillerman's 7th and I'm struck by how the quality of his writing, the quality of his plot development and resolution and his ability to seamlessly weave a lesson in Indian philosophy and daily life into the story without making this non-fiction attempting to be fiction - well, his growth was noteworthy. About this book, in particular, if you read it note that the Tano Pueblo was an invention. This is important to keep in mind if you are lapping up (as I do) all of Hillerman's anthropological knowledge in his books. Nevertheless, there is much learning of Navajo and Pueblo culture here.And, do not read this without reading his other books, IN ORDER, or the impact of the back-story events here will be greatly diminished.

One of the best of Hillerman's book as he contrasts the action of young Navajo policeman, Jim Chess with otherwise of Senior officer Joe Leaphorn. Jim manages to screw up by not really paying attention to what he is doing. It's spring all he thinking about is Janet Peete. His assignment is to locate a Indian lad who is missing from his school and tell him to call his grandmother. Jim asked Janet to go with him to the festival for romantic interlude and before he realizes it Janet has a couple of friends to join them. Needless to said he loose the boy and is present when the boy's uncle is MURDER. Meanwhile Joe Leaphorn is helping the FBI with a MURDER at the school. These affairs are skillfully brought together as one. I highly recommend this book .

Leaphorn and Chee are both at crossroads with their ladies and professionally. Widowed Leaphorn is unsure of where his relationship with Louisa is headed and what a trip overseas with her would entail, and Janet is taking her relationship slow with Chee to his frustration. When a murder of a teacher occurs on the reservation, Chee has to work for Leaphorn instead of parallel to him as in previous cases. Tribal politics and clan taboos come into play in the narrative, and was a strong book in the series.

Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee, both skeptical of the other but nonetheless working together very effectively to solve the mystery of a koshkare being murdered, are both in love and perplexed about how to work and become romantically involved, both at the same time.This is the novel where Chee works with Leaphorn for the first time and where Chee discovers that, but for the rigidity of the Bad Talking Dinee's rules about marriage to someone of a related clan, he would relate to Janet Pete in a way that would lead to marriage.Chee and Leaphorn, in love but clueless about how to be in love, have a crime to solve, even as Leaphorn is suspended from his job while a question of discipline hangs over him. In typical fashion, though, Chee and his reliance upon hozso in all things enters into the solution of the crime and a resolution of the love issues both he and Leaphorn face.Chee tells Leaphorn that "it was because of how you understand the Beauty Way. This busness of hozho, the way I understand it . . . the Hopi, or the Christian, maybe the Moslem, they pray for rain. The Navojo has the proper ceremony done to restore himself to harmony with the drought. You see what I mean. The system is designed to recognize what's beyond human power to change, and then to change the human's attitude to be content with the inevitable."This philosophy--living in balance with all things and deriving harmony in one's life because harmony exists in all those other things and people around you--is the fundamental concept of peace found in almost every system of religious, spiritual, philosophic, and even political thought. It is what each of us should strive for in our personal lives and make that contribution to the harmony of the family, the community, the nation and world, even. It is the secret that civilizations have sought since human beings came into existence and has been elusive for humans ever since.The beauty of it, from the Navajo view which Hillerman describes in all his novels with love, respect, and appreciation, is the simplicity of how hozho is stated, how it can be understood and how it can be practiced, even by tribal cops. For Chee and Leaphorn, possessing hozho and practicing it, helps solve crimes and ferrets out love. What better balance and harmony than that can there be?

Coyote Waits is my favorite Tony Hillerman novel and Sacred Clowns, #11 in the series, is a close second. I loved Sacred Clowns the first time I read it and I love it more now. It’s filled with culture, philosophy, history, and what I consider believable romance. Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee are partnered formally in this story, which provides countless opportunities to see their similarities and differences as well as their harmony-building.The title refers to ethical police that exist in some cultures: ritual clowns. They are sacred in multiple cultures around the world because they remind people to laugh at themselves and question materialism, arrogance, and other threats to community wellness.Other characters contribute insightful perspectives to the story, particularly BIA Officer Harold Blizzard, who is Cheyenne, and Attorney Janet Pete. A vignette of watching Cheyenne Autumn at a drive-in theater is a great example of how a single perspective provides a limited understanding of a situation, but multiple perspectives can add depth and beauty. Pete, Blizzard, and Chee each see different details. It’s wonderful. Hillerman’s ability to weave cultural differences (ethnic, generational, historical, geographical, etc.) into such a beautiful fabric is a big reason why I find these novels so refreshing for my soul.Next is The Fallen Man.

Navahos and moreThis time we confront a different Pueblo People the Hopi. In the Hopi there are a sect or Koshari societies; they do not practice curing; they are concerned with fertility and growth. Their religion is more personal than public and clans are most important. With new people we are treated to a piece of history; The Spanish had a tradition of The Canes of Office here. Governors and lieutenant governors and the like were issued a cane as a symbol of office. Ten years after the Gadsden purchase. The Indians stayed neutral during the Civil War. So President Abraham Lincoln has some canes made of black ebony and crowned with silver inscribed with his signature, "A. Lincoln." These were given the nineteen different pueblos; each cane had the pueblo name on it. Tony Hillerman spins his magic once more in this story of missing people and death that may be related or religion and again maybe just downright greed. Chee and Leaphorn bust work together to find meaning and reason. In the Hillerman tradition, all the clues are laid out in the open allowing you to bet them to the conclusion if you can. A good companion book for this story is "American Indians of the Southwest" by Bertha P. Dutton