The Blessing Way

The Blessing Way is the first crime fiction novel in the Joe Leaphorn / Jim Chee Navajo Tribal Police series by Tony Hillerman. First published in 1970, it introduces the character of officer Joe Leaphorn. Two anthropology professors from New Mexico plan a summer research trip on the Navajo Reservation. Bergen McKee meets his college friend Joe Leaphorn, now a police officer, there. McKee's interest is the Navajo witches and the role they play in the culture. He learns of one on his first day of interviews, who unexpectedly visits his campsite in the night, beginning a saga of peril for him. Leaphorn has a murdered young man as his case, which intertwines with McKee's encounters with a true Navajo witch.