Luxury Vacation Rentals in Four Corners
October 19, 2007. Fans of Tony Hillerman mysteries will want to check out the article "Tony Hillerman's novels inspire Four Corners tours," in the Dallas Morning News. The reporter interviews Hillerman and joins a sanctioned tour of the author's storybook settings by the Scottsdale-based group Detours of Arizona.
The award-winning mystery writer has earned a loyal following with his gripping tales set in the Four Corners states of Arizona, Utah, New Mexico and Colorado. The books feature crimefighters and gumshoes from the Navajo tribe and various High Desert communities, and showcase a landscape that includes ancient pueblo dwellings, parched landscapes and rugged mountains… Just the kinds of places many people enjoy for sightseeing.
Consider this excerpt:
"In the fall, wend through golden aspen groves until coming upon the ghostly shadow of Shiprock Peak, scene of the crime in The Fallen Man, as you come into the northwestern part of New Mexico. The yellow-gold trees are brilliant, set against the chilly specter of this dormant 40 million-year-old volcanic pinnacle shaped like a clipper ship. Shiprock Peak appears in four Hillerman books."
The tours don't just stop with real-life locations, however. Hillerman based many of his characters on real people, and some of those people are gracious enough to welcome visitors.
"These include James Peshlakai, a Navajo scholar, teacher and silversmith who appears as a Navajo shaman in The Wailing Wind. Mr. Peshlakai is a longtime friend of Mr. Hillerman, and stories of their friendship and of how he came to be in a couple of the writer's novels are as fascinating as he is."
