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    Listening Woman: A Mystery Novel
    Listening Woman: A Mystery Novel
    Listening Woman: A Mystery Novel
    Ebook299 pages5 hours

    Listening Woman: A Mystery Novel

    By Tony Hillerman

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

    “Hillerman’s mysteries are special . . . Listening Woman is among the best.”— Washington Post

    The third novel in New York Times bestselling author Tony Hillerman’s highly acclaimed Leaphorn and Chee series.

    The blind shaman called Listening Woman speaks of witches and restless spirits, of supernatural evil unleashed. But Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn of the Navajo Tribal Police is sure the monster who savagely slaughtered an old man and a teenage girl was human.

    Now the solution to a horrific crime is buried somewhere in a dead man’s secrets—and in the shocking events of a hundred years past. To ignore the warnings of a venerable seer, however, might be reckless foolishness when Leaphorn’s investigation leads him farther away from the comprehensible . . . and closer to the most brutally violent confrontation of his career.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateOct 13, 2009
    ISBN9780061795572
    Listening Woman: A Mystery Novel
    Author

    Tony Hillerman

    TONY HILLERMAN served as president of the Mystery Writers of America and received the Edgar and Grand Master Awards. His other honors include the Center for the American Indian’s Ambassador Award, the Spur Award for Best Western Novel, and the Navajo Tribal Council Special Friend of the Dineh Award. A native of Oklahoma, Tony Hillerman lived in Albuquerque, New Mexico, until his death in 2008.

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    Reviews for Listening Woman

    4/5

    41 ratings19 reviews

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    • 3/5
      Book three in the Joe Leaphorn mystery series begins with Listening Woman trying to perform a cleansing / healing ritual for Hosteen Tso, an old man who refuses to divulge all he knows. The blind healer leaves Tso’s side for a few moments, during which time he is murdered. About six months later, Joe Leaphorn is nearly run off the road by a mystery man with a large dog in his car, there are reports of missing Boy Scouts, and people have reported seeing a helicopter (or helicopters) in the area. I like Leaphorn; he’s smart, determined, physically and mentally strong, quick to respond to a threat but also deliberate and cautious. It took me quite a while to get into the rhythm of this mystery. The convoluted plot didn’t help much, and my attention wandered. Once Leaphorn got caught up in the chase, however, I was fully engaged and fairly flew through the second half of the book.
    • 4/5
      This third book in the series sees the development of the character of Joe Leaphorn into a more action-oriented policeman. He still uses his logic and knowledge of the Indian culture to solve mysteries, he is making deals with the FBI for further information, and this time he is out in the canyons chasing the bad guys while trying to understand their motives. This series has really caught my attention and I plan to continue reading as each book has increased my interest.
    • 4/5
      [Some spoilers]. There were some strong pieces of story-telling that were excellent and plot developments that were were weak, which distracted me from the theme: the holiness of the Navajo Way and the importance of sand paintings to bring harmony. 'Listening Woman' was interesting and I wanted to know more about her, have her play a bigger part in unravelling the mystery. The description of Joe Leaphorn (detective) tracking through the canyons and ultimately surviving a fire were visually evocative and suspenseful. The backstory to the robberies/Wounded Knee violence was rather tiresome and felt repetitive, possibly because the plot became too convoluted. Without developing so many mini-mysteries and scenarios (did we really need Theodora Adams?), the plot might have flowed more satisfactorily. Despite those failings, it was an overall good novel, just not stellar.
    • 3/5
      Comfortable writing style and Hillerman is really starting to flesh out Joe Leaphorn in this 3rd book of a long series. I love the Navajo Way, myths, ceremonies, taboos and depictions of daily life. A fairly ambitious and slightly implausible storyline that bogs down a bit in the middle and wraps up a bit quickly. Still, a fast, enjoyable read and I’ll keep moving along to Book 4.
    • 3/5
      On the whole i admire Hillerman's Navajo mysteries for their vivid descriptions of the scenery and lifestyle of the Navajo country, but the plots tend to be on the grim side for my taste. This one involves a Navajo woman healer who questions an old man about mysterious past isdeeds; he refuses to answer and shortly afterward is murdered. Joe Leaphorn of the Navajo Tribal Police investigates
    • 4/5
      Hostein Tso is troubled and calls Listening Woman and her assistant to his hogan for a song - however, he won't tell listening woman everything she needs to know - he is concealing a secret of his great-grandfather and cannot tell. While she is away in a trance, her assistant and Hostein Tso are murdered.I loved Tony Hillerman's books. They have a lot of information about the American Indian's customs and rituals. All of his books feature Chee or Leaphorn, tribal police officers. Good stories.
    • 3/5
      Listening Woman is a good story. There is a lot of suspense. The characters are believable and the settings are well described. The reason for the three star rating is that the story just ends. It leaves the reader on a ledge like the characters in the book.
    • 3/5
      Joe Leaphorn needs to find out why an old man who may have held sacred secrets was brutally murdered, and whether it could possibly be connected to an unsolved armored car robbery that left the FBI mystified. Most of Joe's "detecting" occurs in his head, and he becomes a one man search party whose quarry is determined to leave him dead in the isolated caves and canyons of the Navajo Nation. But it isn't his own life Joe is trying to save; a van full of kidnapped Boy Scouts have been taken hostage in an apparent re-creation of a long-ago massacre of the same number of Indian children. Joe doubts the legitimacy of the kidnappers' devotion to any "cause", but not their willingness to kill. He needs every ounce of intuition, resourcefulness and physical strength he can muster to survive and prevent another tragedy.
    • 3/5
      This one felt a little disjointed. A list of cases and security duty at a Boy Scout campout in the first chapter all become related later. It was like going to an improv comedy show where audience members yell out random words, and the troupe is supposed to use them all in a story.Still loving Joe Leaphorn as a character and the Navajo Way.
    • 4/5
      And old man and a young girl are murdered, but the Listening Woman who was with them is not touched, and it's up to Lieutenant Leaphorn why the murders were committed and why the shaman was left to bear witness. This is a great installment in the series which will provide a generous helping of Navajo culture and a big serving of action to go along. You can tell this is an early book in the series by the amount of running around Leaphorn gets to do - he's a bit older in the later installments (and lets Chee do the running). The mystery itself is quite involved as well with some very unexpected plot twists. The books that involve both Leaphorn and Chee are my favorites in the series, but this is a solid installment in the sole-Leaphorn canon.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      Listening Woman by Tony Hillerman and performed by George Guidall is the third of the Navajo Mysteries series. Jim Chee still hasn't made an appearance, so it's all left to Joe Leaphorn to do the investigating.As many of the other reviews note, there's a certain formula to Hillerman's mysteries. First, there's a horrific crime that could have extra significance in the context of Navajo culture — something that would be missed by anyone unfamiliar with the Diné. Then there's the investigation in which Joe (and later Jim) try to find the balancing point between the Navajo spiritual solution and a more mundane one.In the case of Listening Woman, the book opens with a gruesome murder of an elderly man and a teenage girl. The Diné elder, a blind woman known as Listening Woman, hears the crime and describes the crime in terms of witches and other evil spirits.Joe's investigation brings together events at a trading post that are a hundred years old, a pair of brothers — one now a priest — and the other a traditional Navajo. There is also a lot of talk of history at a local trading post — and I recommend you read Kurt W.G. Matthies's review as he goes into the historical significance of these passages in fascinating detail.For me, though, the mystery is always of secondary concern for me in Hillerman's books. I get so caught up in Leaphorn (and Chee's) observations and the nuances of Diné culture and language that I often lose track of the plot. That is especially true when I'm listening to the audio books. For instance, in the case of the trading post, I mostly remember Leaphorn's thoughts on a man's hat and missing hatband. The significance of the missing hat and the man's physical features that mark him as a Diné from a different region, has stuck with me more so than how those observations were clues in solving the crime.
    • 5/5
      Among the traditional Navajo, also known as the Dinee, the death of a fellow human being was the ultimate evil.They recognize no life after death, that which was natural in a person and therefore good simply ceased.

      That which was unnatural, and therefore evil wandered through the darkness as a ghost causing sickness and disturbing nature.

      So when Lt. Joe Leaphorn of the Navajo police is asked to look into the deaths of an elderly man and a young woman finding a motive for the killings is his primary task. Leaphorn looks and finds much more than he bargained for in this complex and exciting mystery.
    • 4/5
      Working my way through the "canon" of Tony Hillerman. I liked this episode, Leaphorn is hunting for someone who tried to run over him but in the process he gets involved in a couple of murders and a helicopter heist involving lots and lots of money. As always there is a lot of information about the Navaho culture and religion, all of which is very interesting and fascinating to learn about.

      I'll keep reading the series.
    • 4/5
      The third Joe Leaphorn mystery, this one quite action-packed for a Hillerman (I generally regard them as more cerebral than muscle-bound). An old man is killed before he can die of whatever disease he has, but before he does he talks about seeing many sand paintings (each ritual has only one), and seeing them desecrated. Leaphorn sets out to find out why he and a young woman with him were murdered, and who tried to kill him on the road, and is asked to protect a young white woman on a mission, and also some Boy Scouts. Naturally, all come together at the end, in a rather hair-raising extended episode of violence and resolution. I learned a lot of Navajo history from this one, including references to Kit Carson and the truly lovely way the U.S. has always handled its native populations. Must look up more of that.Overall, a very good book.
    • 1/5
      It's a short plain crime novel. It's mostly boring, unless you have a hard on for any sort of Indian culture. It drags badly in the middle. Also, the ending is really bad. I saw where Hillerman was going pretty quickly, which I never like. I like the character Leaphorn, at least. I think it's bumming around in my library for nostalgia's sake.
    • 4/5
      Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn of the Navajo Police is looking for an excuse to get out of patrolling a Boy Scout encampment, so he goes looking through some cold case stuff. He finds the file on a double homicide that is still open. As he digs into the case, he is nearly killed by a crazy driver who laughs as he runs him down. And the more he looks, the more several unrelated cases seem to all tie together. Could a terrorist group be hiding out there in desert?I really like this series. Taken individually, the stories are not necessarily the best. But the series as a whole is a little window into a different way of life, and I love the characters. I know the author is an Anglo from Oklahoma, so why he chose to write about the Southwest is a mystery. But from my perspective here in Utah, he does a great job of getting the feel just right. 3.5 stars
    • 4/5
      First book in the Jim Chee & Joe Leaphorn southwestern mystery series. There are 16 books in the series, all of which are well worth reading but the earlier ones (1978 through 1993) are the most interesting. I have read them all and re-read many of them again.
    • 4/5
      Complex murder plot on Navaho reservation. Cleverly organized; quiet, thoughtful Leaphorn
    • 3/5
      I bought this for a long trip. Enjoyed the story, but the reader was not my favorite, especially the way he read women's voices. Still, it was very listenable. Enjoyed the mystery as always with a Hillerman book.

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