Sacred Clowns: A Novel

Don’t miss the TV series, Dark Winds, based on the Leaphorn, Chee, & Manuelito novels, now on AMC and AMC+!  

From New York Times bestselling author Tony Hillerman comes another unforgettable mystery in which Leaphorn & Chee must race against the clock to solve two brutal murders.

“[Hillerman's] clowns are . . . every bit as raucous, profane, and funny as Shakespeare's."—New York Times Book Review

During a kachina ceremony at the Tano Pueblo, the antics of a dancing koshare fill the air with tension. Moments later, the clown is found bludgeoned to death, in the same manner a reservation schoolteacher was killed only days before.

Officer Jim Chee and Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn believe that answers lie in the sacred clown's final cryptic message to the Tano people. But to decipher it, the two Navajo policemen may have to delve into closely guarded tribal secrets—on a sinister trail of blood that links a runaway, a holy artifact, corrupt Indian traders, and a pair of dead bodies.

During a kachina ceremony at the Tano pueblo, the antics of a dancing koshare fill the air with tension. Moments later, the clown is found bludgeoned to death, in the same manner a reservation schoolteacher was killed only days before.

Officer Jim Chee and Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn believe that answers lie in the sacred clown's final cryptic message to the Tano people. But to decipher it, the two Navajo policemen may have to delve into closely guarded tribal secrets -- on a sinister trail of blood that links a runaway, a holy artifact, corrupt Indian traders, and a pair of dead bodies.

"A well-braided, spell-binding yarn . . . Mr. Hillerman's novels inject fresh urgency to the age-old question about good and evil . . . [Hillerman] is at the top of his form." - Baltimore Morning Sun

"How long can Tony Hillerman keep it up? . . . Sacred Clowns is as good as anything he's done--as flavorful as beef jerky, so evocative of the land around the Four Comers area of New Mexico that even if you've never been there, you'll think you have." - Chicago Tribune

"Steeped in Navajo lore and traditions . . . The resolutions--personal and professional--ring true with gratifying inevitability." - Publishers Weekly

"There has never been anything ordinary about Hillerman's crisply plotted, magically evocative tales. . . . Mingling taut, deceptively simple prose with shrewd psychological insight and a scholar's understanding of Navajo culture and religion." - Entertainment Weekly