Skinwalkers is a crime novel by American writer Tony Hillerman, the seventh in the Joe Leaphorn/Jim Chee Navajo Tribal Police series, published in 1986.

Reviews at the time of publication praised it highly: "Hillerman brings together his two series characters--middle-aged, cynical Lieut.

Joe Leaphorn and young, mystical Officer Jim Chee--without in any way diminishing the stark power and somber integrity that have distinguished previous exploits of the Navajo Tribal Police."

A New York Times review called this the breakout novel for Hillerman, when sales began to surge and recognition increased.

One was in the shotgun shells that entered Chee's trailer; another was in the knife wounds that killed Endocheeney; and one was found in Bistie's wallet when he was taken in for questioning.

After he is taken to the hospital at Gallup, Chee and other officers follow the drag marks to find Bistie's corpse, dead from two gunshots to the chest, likely from the same gun that hit Leaphorn's arm.

Bistie's daughter thinks her father had been trying to kill a skinwalker, to regain his own life, which would end soon by untreatable liver cancer.

Then, the reason for the homicides falls into place, and he must get from Gallup to Badwater Clinic, because Dr. Yellowhorse, the man who wants to improve health of the Navajo people, will kill Chee.

Yellowhorse was cheating by claiming reimbursements months after patients died at the clinic or went home healthy, so she had to be killed.

They guess he will not think to trace down which patients Yellowhorse persuaded to kill the four victims, as the mother attacked Chee, but that is okay, it is over.

In his 2011 book, Tony Hillerman's Navajoland: Hideouts, Haunts, and Havens in the Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee Mysteries, author Laurance D. Linford has listed these 72 geographical locations, real and fictional, mentioned in Skinwalkers.

A traditional Navajo hataalii might disapprove of Chee arranging a Blessing Way by letter, instead of a face-to-face request, or even practicing his sand painting out of doors, outside a hogan.

Greg Herren, for Reviewing the Evidence, found that the "suspense gradually builds until the reader cannot help but turn the page, regardless of the time" stating that Hillerman is "a master of character, scene, and plot", concluding that "what makes Skinwalkers so outstanding, for me, is that it takes the reader inside the world of the Navajo reservation".

[4] Alicia Karen Elkins, for Rambles magazine, stated that she "could not put this book down and read it completely in one sitting", finding that it "will keep you edge of your seat and amaze you with unexpected twists" and that "the writing is lively and extremely descriptive"; concluding "I highly recommend it for anyone with an interest in Native American folklore or culture".

Joe Leaphorn and young, mystical Officer Jim Chee--without in any way diminishing the stark power and somber integrity that have distinguished previous exploits of the Navajo Tribal Police.

(There have even been complaints about Chee's shaman-izing--from the selfless doctor who heads a highly effective local clinic, mixing medicine with some pseudo-mysticism.)

It soon becomes clear, however, that Chee's mystical knowledge is crucial to the investigation--since all the murder-victims turn out to be linked (in rumor, at least) to Indian witchcraft, to the fearsome practice of "skin-walking."

And, before the very earthbound motive behind all the mayhem is revealed (not too hard to guess), Chee's tribal ambitions lead him into a near-fatal trap.

Haunting backgrounds, quietly disturbing incidents, tautly orchestrated tensions: another indelible Navajo-world imprint from the author of The Ghostway and People of Darkness.

She said, "despite a loyal following among mystery fans, book sales in the United States did not surge until The Skinwalkers," the first novel Hillerman wrote after quitting his university position to write full-time, and which joined his two Navajo police officers, Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee.

Robert Redford "acknowledges he was taken aback by how difficult it was to bring Hillerman's tales to the big screen "because of the perception of Native Americans not being commercial territory.