Tony Hillerman Prize for Best First Mystery Set in the Southwest
After many great years, the Tony Hillerman Prize competition has come to an end. Minotaur Books is grateful to all who worked on this wonderful prize throughout the years. A special thanks to Anne Hillerman for her support of aspiring authors of the American Southwest, and as always, grateful acknowledgement to the legacy of her father, Tony Hillerman. (from the MacMillan Website)
Excuse my ego, but I have gmail account set to search for Tony Hillerman/Prize alerts, so I’d know when a new prize winner was announced.. But the account has alerted scant few times since my debut THP winner, Hearts of the Missing (2018). Most recently, I’d received alerts for the 2020 THP winner whose book is coming out this month (March 2024), which is odd anyway. It usually takes about 18 months from award to release.
Don’t get me wrong. That MacMillan/Minotaur has writing competitions is great. To give a debut mystery author a traditional contract and toe-hold into a very difficult business is a gift. It was the best thing that happened in my writing career. But the THP competition deserved more, and the authors whose books were chosen deserved more. I was never contacted when a new prize was awarded, there was never any publicity or marketing for the past books that were chosen and published. It seemed like a wasted opportunity.
So I would like to introduce you to the prize-winning books and do some marketing and publicity right now. If you are looking for something to read, support these authors. I’ll link each book to a buy link (probably you-know-where), but check out your favorite bookseller and library. And if you read and like a book, please write a review and post it. Thank you, and here we go ….
The Replacement Child by Christine Barber (2007)
Editor Lucy Newroe answers a phone call in the Capital Tribune newsroom from the notorious Scanner Lady – an anonymous elderly tipster whose hobby is to pass the newspaper with gossip from her police scanner. The woman tells Lucy she heard two Santa Fe cops discussing a dead body. But when Lucy checks out the tip, she discovers Scanner Lady has been killed.
She enlists the help of Detective Gil Montoya, but he has just been handed the case of Melissa Baca, a seventh-grade teacher whose body was thrown off the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge. As Lucy and Gil hunt down the culprits in each murder, they discover their cases are intertwined in the most intimate ways.
The Ragged Edge of Nowhere by Roy Chaney (2008)
Bodo Hagen thought his family had left Las Vegas for good. He had joined the CIA and moved to Berlin, while his younger brother had followed in their father’s footsteps and joined the French Foreign Legion. For a while they were free from the criminal underworld upon which the Vegas Strip was built.
But when his Legion contract ended, Bodo’s brother returned to Las Vegas. Five days later his body was found on the edge of the desert. Word is that he’d returned from Europe with a valuable―and possibly stolen―ancient relic to sell. Now Bodo must come back and track down that missing artifact―and with it, his brother’s killer.
No prize given in 2009
The Territory by Tricia Fields (2010)
At the end of State Road 170 and just past a ghost town lies Artemis, population 2,500. The townspeople sought out this remote corner of Western Texas in hopes of living lives of solitude and independence. But their small town has become a hot spot for Mexican drug runners, who have turned both sides of the Rio Grande into a war zone. Still, many of the locals would rather take the law into their own hands than get help from police chief Josie Gray, even when they’re up against a cartel’s private army.
After arresting one of the cartel’s hit men and killing another, Josie finds her life at risk for doing a job that many people would rather see her quit. And when the town’s self-appointed protector of the Second Amendment is murdered and his cache of weapons disappears, it’s clear that she doesn’t have to pick sides in this war. She’s battling them both. First of a 7 book series.
City of Saints by Andrew Hunt (2011)

To the outside observer, Salt Lake City might seem to be the squeaky-clean “City of Saints”—its nickname since Mormon pioneers first arrived. But looks can be deceiving.
When a beautiful socialite turns up dead, Art Oveson, a twenty-something husband, father, and devout Mormon just getting his start as a sheriff’s deputy, finds himself thrust into the role of detective. With his partner, a foul-mouthed former strikebreaker, he begins to pursue the murderer—or murderers. His search takes him into the underbelly of Salt Lake City, a place rife with blackmail, corruption, and death.
No prize given in 2012
Bad Country by CB McKenzie (2013)

Rodeo Grace Garnet lives with his old dog in a remote corner of Arizona known to locals as El Hoyo. He doesn’t get many visitors in The Hole, but a body found near his home has drawn police attention to his front door. The victim is a member of a major Southwestern Indian tribe, whose death is part of a mysterious rompecabeza – a classic crime puzzler – that includes multiple murders, cold-blooded betrayals, and low-down scheming, with Rodeo caught in the middle.
Scraping by as a bounty hunter, warrant server, and divorce snoop, Rodeo doesn’t have much choice but to say yes when offered an unusual case. But the elderly Indian woman who hired him to discover her grandson’s murderer she seems strangely uninterested in the results. But as Rodeo pursues interrelated cases, he learns the old woman’s indifference is nothing compared to true hatred – and the hard-pressed PI is about to discover just how far hate can go.
Winner of the Spur Award for Best Western Contemporary Novel
Finalist for the Shamus Award for Best First P.I. Novel
Finalist for the Edgar Award for Best First Novel
Dark Reservations by John Fortunato (2014)
After a bungled investigation, Bureau of Indian Affairs Special Agent Joe Evers faces a forced retirement. But when Congressman Arlen Edgerton’s bullet-riddled Lincoln turns up on the Navajo reservation – twenty years after he had disappeared during a corruption probe – Joe must resurrect his failing career to solve the mysterious cold case.
Joe uncovers a murderous conspiracy that leads him from ancient Anasazi burial grounds on the Navajo Nation, backroom deals in Washington, D.C., and the dangerous world of black market trade in Native American artifacts. Can he unravel the mystery and bring the true criminal to justice, or will he become another silenced victim?
The Homeplace by Kevin Wolf (2015)
Chase Ford was the first of four generations to leave Comanche County, Colorado. For Chase, leaving saved the best and hid the worst. But now, he has come home. His friends are right there waiting for him. And so are his enemies.
Then the murder of a boy, a high school basketball star just like Chase, rocks the small town. When another death is discovered―one that also shares unsettling connections to him―law enforcement’s attention turns towards Chase, causing him to wonder just what he came home to.
I read Kevin’s book Brokeheart (2017), too, and really enjoyed it..
No award given 2016
Hearts of the Missing by Carol Potenza (2017)
Members of the Fire-Sky tribe are disappearing. No one takes notice except a young woman who turns up dead by suicide. Pueblo Police Sergeant Nicky Matthews is assigned to the case but nothing adds up … until she discover the was used to hide the trail of a killer connected to dozens of missing tribe members.
As Nicky delves deeper, she discovers a chilling threat that strikes at the very heart of the Fire-Sky culture: the missing were murdered because of ancestry, and, in a vengeful twist, the killer ensures the spirits of those taken will wander forever, lost to their People.
With a hostile captain, interference by a politically powerful outsider, and a burgeoning relationship with a suspicious new hire on the Pueblo, Nicky doesn’t trust anyone. When those closest to her are put in jeopardy, Nicky must be prepared to sacrifice everything to save the people she loves. Part of a four book series!
No award given 2018
Pay Dirt Road by Samantha Jayne Allen (2019)
Annie McIntyre has a love/hate relationship with Garnett, Texas. Lacking not in ambition but certainly in direction, Annie is lured into the family business—a private investigation firm—by her grandfather, Leroy, despite the rest of the clan’s misgivings.
When a waitress at the café goes missing, Annie and Leroy’s investigation leads them down rural routes and haunted byways, to noxious-smelling oil fields and to the glowing neon of local honky-tonks. Annie finds herself identifying with the victim in increasing, unsettling ways, and realizes she must confront her own past—failed romances, a disturbing experience she’d rather forget, and the trick mirror of nostalgia itself—if she wants to survive this homecoming. Three book series!
Off the Air by Christina Estes (2020 to be published 2024)
Phoenix TV reporter Jolene Garcia splits her time between covering general assignments—anything from a monsoon storm to the zoo’s newborn giraffe—and special projects stories that Jolene wants to tell.
When word gets out about a death at a radio station, Jolene and other journalists swarm the scene, intent on reporting the facts first. The body is identified as Larry Lemmon, a controversial talk show host, who died under suspicious circumstances.
As the story heats up, so does the competition. Jolene is determined to solve this murder. It’s an investigation that could make or break her career—if it doesn’t break her first. Releasing on March 26th.
Ten Tony Hillerman Prize mysteries over eighteen years, all still available and some the start of a series. I hope you’ll pick one or two up to read, enjoy, and review.
Goodbye, Tony Hillerman Prize. We’ll miss you.
Leave a Reply