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132 pages, 7 x 10
115 drawings
Paperback
Release Date:04 Mar 2025
ISBN:9780826367914
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Johnny Geronimo

Art of Darkness

By Gary Robinson; Illustrated by Dale DeForest; Afterword by David Heska Wanbli Weiden
University of New Mexico Press

Someone, or something, is killing the Native artists and art collectors of Santa Fe. The police are baffled by a series of brutal murders: ritual killings with all the trappings of some of the mythic monsters of the Apache origin stories, each signed with the same bloody signature: the Coyote. But where the police fail, Johnny may succeed. A hard-bitten, hard-boiled private investigator right out of the pages of Chandler or Cain, Johnny has a key advantage: as an Apache, he can go places the police can’t, and he can talk to the people the police won’t. As the owner of Eagle Eye Investigations, Johnny moves effortlessly among both the high society of Santa Fe and the outlaw underworld. With his assistants, Willy and Jessie, as well as a succession of lady friends, Johnny sets out on the trail of the Coyote, and the closer he gets, the more it becomes apparent that the hunter is also the hunted. Johnny Geronimo: Art of Darkness incorporates themes from Apache and other Indigenous traditions to tell the story of this classic antihero of Native noir and of the demonic Coyote, who may be more than anyone can imagine.

Johnny Geronimo captures the feel of the best of the noir detective novels. It is not easily put down. WHAM! SOCK! BAM! FANTASTIC!’—Tom Holm, author of Panther Creek: A Pawnee Country Mystery and Anadarko: A Kiowa Country Mystery

Johnny Geronimo captures the feel of the best of the noir detective novels. It is not easily put down. WHAM! SOCK! BAM! FANTASTIC!”—Tom Holm, author of Panther Creek: A Pawnee Country Mystery and Anadarko: A Kiowa Country Mystery

“Gary Robinson and Dale DeForest present a tale well told that speaks to contemporary issues. Its knowledge of Santa Fe and the surrounding lands makes for a great read.”—Theodore C. Van Alst Jr., author of Sacred Folks and coeditor of Never Whistle at Night

“Gary Robinson and Dale DeForest present a tale well told that speaks to contemporary issues. Its knowledge of Santa Fe and the surrounding lands makes for a great read.”—Theodore C. Van Alst Jr., author of Sacred Folks and coeditor of Never Whistle at Night

Gary Robinson is a writer and filmmaker of Choctaw and Cherokee descent. He is the author of the “Lands of our Ancestors” series of Native American historical novels, ANative American Night Before Christmas, the YA novel Billy Buckhorn and the Book of Spells, and others. He lives in Santa Ynez, California.

Dale Deforest is a member of the Diné tribe and grew up in the Four Corners area of the Navajo Nation around Shiprock and Farmington, New Mexico. He studied 2-D arts and photography at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Dale’s work has been featured in numerous exhibitions. Most recently, his piece “The Force Is With Our People”—an exhibition celebrating Native people’s relation to pop culture—was shown at the Museum of Northern Arizona. He lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

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