Dance Hall of the Dead

Dance Hall Of The Dead is a crime novel by American writer Tony Hillerman, the second in the Joe Leaphorn/Jim Chee Navajo Tribal Police series, first published in 1973. It features police Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn. It is set primarily in Ramah Reservation (part of the Navajo Reservation) and the Zuni village in New Mexico, both in the American Southwest.

Two boys are missing from the Zuni school. One boy is a Navajo, so Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn is called in to find him while the Zuni police seek the other boy. The Zuni boy's body is found, brutally murdered. Tracks of the other boy are found at the scene. This Navajo boy is a well-trained hunter who has to skip school some days to hunt to feed himself, his father and his brother. He seeks spiritual guidance, as well, being the only Navajo boy in his class at school. He is a challenge for Leaphorn, the most skilled tracker, to find, especially once he realizes who the killer is, and the search moves to a major Zuni ceremony.

The story contrasts Zuni and Navajo beliefs through the two boys and the two policemen. The Zuni believe in something like heaven after death, where the Navajo encourage the people to do their best on earth, as their chindi, the worst of a person, will be a ghost left behind after death. The two tribes reside in the same area for hundreds of years, yet use the land differently, Zunis preferring a town while Navajos spread out over the land, and have sharply contrasted beliefs as to the after life. This is played out in the bellagana culture, with ambitious anthropologists, the drug trade, the FBI, and narcotics officers.