MUST SEE, MUST READ
MARIANA’S KNIGHT
(2017, by W. Michael Farmer): Beautifully written and based on a real-life murder mystery, this novel follows the February 1896 disappearance of well-known New Mexico attorney Albert Jennings Fountain and his 8-year-old son, Henry. Ambushed on Chalk Hill near White Sands, father and son vanished, leaving nothing behind but a bloodsoaked buckboard wagon. Author Farmer takes speculation one step further—what if Henry survived? Other novels in his Legends of the Desert series include Knight of the Tiger and Blood-Soaked Earth.
Spider Woman’s Daughter (2013, Anne Hillerman): This first Leaphorn & Chee mystery novel, written by the late Tony Hillerman’s daughter, Anne, derives its title from American Indian legends. The story is set in the Four Corners, where Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Colorado meet, an area encompassing 500 Indian tribes on 318 reservations. The novel won a 2014 Spur Award from Western Writers of America and landed on The New York Times Best Seller list. Spider Woman’s Daughter, a reviewer wrote in the online New York Journal of Books, “continues the Hillerman tradition, providing likable heroes against despicable villains coming together in unusual and intriguing situations in a glorious, littleunderstood world.”
Blood and Thunder (2006, by Hampton Sides): In Sides’ retelling trapper, scout and soldier Kit Carson understands and respects the Western Indian tribes better than most, yet he must follow orders and participate in the final devastation of the Navajo nation. Richly detailed and spanning more than 30 years of history, the narrative captures the West as it really was. The dusty town of Santa Fe is the epicenter around which swirl politicians, government officials and military. Sides sweeps the reader along, telling stories with intimacy and immediacy. It reads as if he were there.
The Hi-Lo Country (1961, by Max Evans): Evans considered northeastern New Mexico, where it borders Oklahoma, Colorado and Texas, Hi-Lo Country. Growing up in that area as a young artist, Evans used the land as the setting for his best-known writings. At the center of this tale set after World War II is the story of friendship between two men, their mutual love of a woman and their commitment to the harsh, dry high-desert grassland. The Hi-Lo Country was adapted into a 1998 film starring Woody Harrelson, Billy Crudup and Patricia Arquette.
1974, by John Nichols): The first volume of a New Mexico trilogy, this novel is set in the early 1970s
