The Blessing Way introduces Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn, a character who returns in a number of Hillerman novels. In Dancehall of the Dead (1973), often considered one of Hillerman's best mysteries, Leaphorn returns to solve a mystery involving a Navajo youth who is seeking initiation into the Zuni people, and must deal with an absurdly complicated law enforcement bureaucracy as well as his own personal prejudices against the Zuni and the FBI. Listening Woman (1977) again highlights the cultural differences between Native American people groups and the need for understanding to overcome those differences. (The following year, Hillerman introduced Jim Chee, another Navajo officer of the Law and Order Division of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, in The People of Darkness (1978). He would return in The Dark Wind (1981) and Ghostway (1984) before appearing alongside Leaphorn in later Hillerman mysteries.)

Chee and Leaphorn first appear together in 1985's A Thief of...