  lieutenant joe leaphorn is a fictional character created by the twentieth-century american mystery writer tony hillerman; he is one of two officers of the navajo tribal police who are featured in a number of hillerman's novels.george n. dove and earl f. bargainnier (eds), cops and constables: american and british fictional policemen, popular press, 1986, pp. 98â113, isbn 0879723343. the other officer is jim chee. == profile == ===personal life and education=== joe leaphorn was born to anna gorman, whose father was hosteen klee thlumie, called hosteen klee by young leaphorn. his maternal grandfather told him the stories of the navajo way of life (listening woman). he was educated in the lower grades near home on the reservation, but sent to boarding school for the higher grades, thus missing some of the stories told only in winter season. he thinks back often to his college days at arizona state university, where he completed a masters degree in anthropology, writing a thesis paper (dance hall of the dead). in addition to anthropology, he has a lifelong interest in the many religions of american indians and peoples of the world (listening woman). in the earlier books of the series, lieutenant leaphorn is married to the love of his life, emma. they had no children. in skinwalkers, leaphorn recalls meeting his wife at university. they have been married for thirty years, and he is preoccupied by her health problems, which he fears mean alzheimer's disease but are diagnosed as arising from a brain tumor at the end of the novel. in a thief of time, when leaphorn's wife has died a few months earlier, he reflects on his marriage. leaphorn had been funded to continue in anthropology, get his doctorate, be a professor. then he met emma on the campus, and married her. he found a job to support them and keep them on the reservation where she wanted to live. he had the habit of trying out theories of people with her, a sharp observer, as he solved his cases, and he misses that immediately as he grieves the loss of her. in the fallen man it is revealed that emma survived the surgery to remove the benign brain tumor; she died from a staph infection following the surgery, when jim chee is in the same hospital recovering from wounds sustained on duty. later, leaphorn becomes attracted to an anthropologist named louisa bourbonette, whom he meets while working on a case in coyote waits. louisa sometimes helps in collecting information to solve cases, as she interviews older indians of several tribes, in her professional pursuits of documenting the origin stories of each tribe. leaphorn is always in love with emma, but 
Fictional_American_police_detectives Fictional_Navajo_people Fictional_characters_from_Arizona Fictional_police_lieutenants