The subgenre of the Native American detective story has blossomed in the past twenty-five years, with Andrew and Gina Macdonald and Mary Ann Sheridan reporting over seventy native detectives in their critical study Shaman or Sherlock: The Native American Detective (2001). In the Southwest alone these include writers as diverse as Kirk Mitchell (Cry Dance, 1999), Aimee and David Thurlo (the Ella Clah series), Lauren Maddison (Deception, 1999), Sinclair Browning (Trade Ellis series), Cecil Dawkins (Clay Dancers, 1994), David Cole (Butterfly Lost, 1999), Micah Hackler (Sheriff Lansing series), and Martin Cruz Smith (Nightwing, 1977). The detectives are Hopi, Pueblo, Apache, Navajo, Tewa, Papago, Comanche, and Modoc.

Successful practitioners of the genre range from writers like Naomi Stokes, Muriel Gray, and James Doss who focus on the shamanistic as a means to knowledge to those like Margaret Cole, Peter Bowen, Marcia Simpson, Dana Stabenow, and Jean Hager who focus on more mainstream approaches...