He’s currently watching over the tribal property and the digging equipment, but he can’t focus. He’s depressed because a woman he loves has moved away, and he doesn’t have any interesting cases to work on. Meanwhile, Jim is having a quiet spell at work. Thinking she could be in trouble, Joe decides to take on the case before retiring for good. He learns that she thought she was close to a major new discovery she had identified rare pot markings on the relics. Friedman-Bernal and what she’s been studying at the site.

These relics are on protected land, making her “a thief of time.” However, when Joe and Thatcher get to the site, they find out that the woman is missing. Eleanor Friedman-Bernal, has been accused of stealing Anasazi relics. He wants Joe to go with him to Chaco National Park, where an anthropologist, Dr. However, BLM agent Thatcher has a job for him. He hands in his resignation letter, not intending to return once his leave expires. On compassionate leave for a while now, he is planning to retire from the Navajo Tribal Police altogether.

His wife, Emma, recently had brain surgery for a cancerous tumor she didn’t survive the surgery. Although they have different worldviews, Joe and Jim work well together. Jim is very traditional when he’s not busy with police detective work, he’s studying to become a healer. He doesn’t follow many of the Navajo traditions, which brings him into conflict with some of his own people-including Jim. Free-spirited by nature, Joe loves police detective work because he can use his own ingenuity to solve crimes.

Officers Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee work for the Navajo Tribal Police. Prior to his death in 2008, he was an international bestselling author. In 1996, he was ranked as New Mexico’s 25th Wealthiest Man. Hillerman served as a mortarman in the 103rd Infantry Division during World War II, during which time he earned numerous medals. The book, a popular installment in the long-standing series, won the 1989 Macavity Award for Best Mystery Novel. Tony Hillerman’s mystery novel A Thief of Time, the eighth book in the Leaphorn & Chee series, follows detectives hunting for a missing anthropologist and precious artifacts.

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