When Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee, Tony Hillerman’s oddly matched tribal police officers, patrol the mesas and canyons of their Navajo reservation, they join a rich tradition of Southwestern detectives. In
Crime Fiction and Film in the Southwest , a group of literary critics tracks the mystery and crime novel from the Painted Desert to Death Valley and Salt Lake City. In addition the book includes the first comprehensive bibliography of mysteries set in the Southwest and a chapter on Southwest film
Noir
from Humphrey Bogart’s tough hood in
The Petrified Forest
to Russell Crowe’s hard-nosed cop in
LA Confidential .