On a clear, late-summer afternoon in her home southeast of Tucson, Anne Hillerman can gaze north through her living room windows, over Saguaro National Park, and see the Catalina Mountains glowing beyond.
By closing her eyes, she can see even farther.
Just last week, she was describing the Elephant Feet buttes on the Navajo Nation in northeastern Arizona, 400 miles away.
The buttes are the visual touchstones for Hillerman’s latest novel, “Lost Birds,” and her ability to see them so clearly is just one of the reasons it became a New York Times bestseller last spring.
“If I’m going to take readers to a place they haven’t been, I need to tell them what it looks like,” she explained, simply. “My dad was great at that. I’m no Tony Hillerman, so I try to find places he never wrote about and talk about them.”
Anne’s father, of course, was one of American fiction’s brightest stars in the 1990s and early 2000s, best-known for his series featuring Navajo Tribal Police detectives Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee.
The Hillerman franchise is now in the capable hands of Anne, who divides her time between Tucson and Santa Fe. She has written nine novels since her father died in 2008. All nine have spent time on the bestseller list.
What is more, she now consults on a TV series that has been adapted from the Hillermans’ books. Season 3 of "Dark Winds," starring Jessica Matten, will air in March on AMC.
A half-time Tucsonan since 2021, Hillerman feels very much at home here.
“I have to say, I love Tucson,” she said. “It’s such a diverse and interesting place. I was invited to the book festival when my first novel came out. After that, every time I came it just started feeling more and more like the place I was meant to be.”
It helped, of course, that she has a new grandson just a few miles down the road.
“The only drawback,” she laughed, “is that I like to write in the morning, and for a lot of the year mornings are the best time to be outside.”
Particularly now that she is a bestselling author herself, it is interesting to learn how Anne Hillerman’s career has traced that of her father.
A journalist by trade, he became the editor of the Santa Fe New Mexican and — later — the head of the journalism department at the University of New Mexico.
Anne, too, chose journalism, and was a student in two of his classes at UNM.
Like her dad, she became a writer, but never for a moment did she think of herself as a novelist.
“We never, ever talked about that,” she said. “By the time he got to be well-known, I was already into my career as a reporter. Books were his thing. I was happy doing what I was doing in Santa Fe.”
When her father died, Anne assumed that Leaphorn and Chee would find other lines of work. But then …
“My late husband and I had published a book of Southwestern landscapes, places my dad had described in his books,” Anne recalled. “It came out the year after dad died, and we went out on a little book tour to places like libraries and Rotary clubs to talk about it. Over and over, people would come up and say how much they loved those books. How much they missed those characters. A lot of them asked if anyone would be continuing the series.
“After a while, I realized I missed those books, too. I didn’t want them to end, either, and if anybody could continue dad’s series it had to be me.”
She had, after all, read all of her father’s books at least twice.
“We used to talk about them over dinner,” Anne said. “It was like Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee were part of our family.”
Slowly, she began getting her head around the prospect of continuing the series herself.
She spoke with her mother, Marie. She called her father’s editor, Carolyn Marino at HarperCollins.
“They both thought I should try,” Anne said, “so one day I sat down and started writing a book. You know, it’s kinda hard learning how to write a novel while you’re writing a novel.”
Luckily, Hillerman had already made two key decisions that proved pivotal in her success.
First, she decided to promote one of her dad’s minor characters — the intrepid and thoroughly modern Bernadette Manuelito — into a central role as a crime-solver. Second, she wanted something dramatic to take place in the first 50 pages.
“I thought if I was going to continue the series — and not be Tony Hillerman, who I could never be — I had to think of ways to make my books different," she said. “I had always liked Bernie in his books, so she became my thread. I could develop a woman’s perspective through her.”
As for the early drama, Anne was pragmatic. “I thought Dad’s readers might be willing to try me for a chapter or two, but I wouldn’t have long to get their attention.”
On Page 3 of that first book, “Spider Woman’s Daughter,” Leaphorn is shot in the head outside a local restaurant. Bernadette witnesses the crime. Check. Check.
Released in 2013, “Spider Woman’s Daughter” quickly hit the bestseller list, and Hillerman was on her way.
Over the course of the last 10 years, Anne has introduced a variety of new characters to the mix. She has updated elements of police science that have emerged.
“I’m also kinder to the FBI than he was,” she said, “but none of this in any way diminishes my dad’s great talent in creating the series. I remain in awe of his creativity.”
Anne’s 10th book, “Shadow of the Solstice,” is well into the editing stage and scheduled for release in April.
Beyond that? Anne Hillerman will just close her eyes and see what comes into view.
FOOTNOTES
- “Lost Birds” is a Navajo term for children adopted by non-Navajo families. In Hillerman’s latest book, a Lost Bird is searching for her natural parents. The only clue is a photo of her as a baby, with the Elephant Feet buttes in the background.
- The paperback edition of “Lost Birds” will be released Jan. 28.
- Hillerman readily credits her father for her development as a writer. When she was young, she showed him a sentence in her homework that read: Janey and her brother sat under a tree. “Dad suggested I make it a poplar tree. Then he wondered what the bark looked like. What did the leaves sound like? That was the blessing of having a dad who was a writer.”
This week’s bookcase includes reviews of Death At The Sign Of The Rook by Kate Atkinson and Mina’s Matchbox by Yoko Ogawa. Kate Atkinson’s latest offering has echoes of classic Agatha Christie-style murder mysteries.
