Photo: David Livingston/Getty Images (2009)
Sample of authors
Koontz, Dean R.
Dean Ray Koontz is an American author of suspense literature. He was born in Everett, Pennsylvania, and grew up in a dysfunctional family with a violent, alcoholic father and a suppressed mother. He found comfort in reading and watching movies, and he began to write short stories, which he sold to friends and relatives when he was eight years old. He attended Shippensburg State College (now...
Literary figures
Jim Chee
Gender: Male
Jim Chee is a Navajo police officer working in a Native American reservation where he often collaborates with an older (later retired) officer by the name of Joe Leaphorn. When he is not solving crime, Chee likes to study Navajo culture and religion, and he is training to become a hataalii, a shaman. The author, Tony Hillerman, is not from the Navajo tribe, but he grew up in a reservation.