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Showing posts from February, 2014
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Wishes, Lies, and Dreams READING WITH THEBOOKJEANIE Borrowing the title of Kenneth Koch's book on teaching poetry to children and pairing it with Aimee Sicuro's delightfully whimsical painting - perhaps this is how a writer feels when setting free a finished book out into the world. As novelist Ann Patchett noted, "Once the book is written, its value is for the reader to decide." With the passing of noted Southwest mystery writer Tony Hillerman,  I also sadly bid farewell to Leaphorn and Chee, the tribal policemen skilled in solving complex cases that often involved intimate knowledge and understanding of the traditional Navajo ways. I pulled out an old paperback copy of The Blessing Way in which seasoned veteran, Joe Leaphorn, grudgingly takes on a new young recruit as a partner, Jim Chee. Leaphorn quickly learns that Chee has the right instincts to be a good policeman as well as being firmly rooted in the Navajo traditions. Over the many subsequ