Skinwalkers: The Navajo Mysteries

What Netflix has streaming as Skinwalkers: The Navajo Mysteries is actually 3 TV movies: Skinwalkers, Coyote Waits and A Thief Of Time.

Skinwalkers (2002)

Lt. Joe Leaphorn (Wes Studi) doesn't follow Navajo traditions, he believes in what he can see
Office Jim Chee (Adam Beach) is traditional, in fact he's a medicine man in training in addition to a police officer

Leaphorn is married, Chee is single.

Someone is murdering medicine men and the evidence appears to point to a skinwalker, an evil spirit
Even when some one fires a shotgunt at officer Jee the shot is loaded with bone pellets, to inflict a curse according to officer Chee

Thanks, Guybrush, are you enjoying it?

Yes. I just finished the first episode.

The detective's wife has cancer. She accepts both modern medicine and Navajo healing rituals. Raised in Phoenix he'd rather live in Phoenix but she wants to be back among their people. So that's why he is there for her.

Coyote Waits (2003)

Officer Chee arrests a man for killing another officer. Detective Leaphorn's wife insists the man is innocent so against his better judgement he looks into the case, even though it underminds Chee and in fact murder on the reservation is a federal offense, under the jurisdiction of the FBI. Office Chee who burned his hand is on medical leave. Feeling guilty about not being there when his friend needed think he should just be a medicine man not a cop too.

Did you finish them all ?

Haven't watched the third one yet

i highly recommend the books ,except for the 2 written by hillerman's daughter.

the flavor of hers is markedly different from her dad.

Is this defense attorney Janet Pete the movies try to make Chee's love interest in the books? I can't stand her.

Robert Redford was Executive Producer on these.

A Thief Of Time (2004)

If you are assigned guard duty you do not leave your post for any reason. TV and movie guards never get this. Officer Chee abandons his post to answer a report of a drunk woman. And while he's gone a back hoe is stolen. The police captain is understandable annoyed with him.

When a pot disappears from an archaeologist dig, the annoyed captain, interrupts Leaporn's leave to have him serf a warrant on the suspected archeologist. But she's disappeared too.

If these haden't aired on PBS I'd think they were sponsored by Coke Cola, as Coke products keep showing up.

Graham Greene plays a conman pretending to be a Christian preacher in these films. Took me a bit to recognize him as Longmire's Malachi Strand, he's a dozen years younger.



I added an order film to my netflix dvd queue: The Dark Wind (1991) which stars Lou Diamond Phillips (Longmire's Henry Standing Bear alias Hector) as Officer Jim Chee.

guybrush , she is in the first couple of books that have chee also. but as

you can probably figure out , chee is traditional ,and she wants to further

her career in washington , so no worries.

i enjoyed the chemistry of chee and leaphorn in the books . i thought it took

awhile for them to connect in the tv series.

graham greene was delightful as the preacher ,wasn't he ?

i'll check out the dark wind - thanks for that info !

There was a movie, almost similar about murders on a Reservation. Can't remember the name of it though. The investigating officer was native American. I keep thinking there was something about claims of a shapeshifter. Anyone know what it was?