Thirty-five years after its original publication, Tony Hillerman’s now classic mystery novel, The Blessing Way, has been reissued in a deluxe hardcover printing.  Navajo artist Ernest Franklin, long associated with Hillerman, has done more than thirty original drawings, ten of them full page illustrations.  The book is proudly offered by a new publisher, Sidewinder Publishing, Albuquerque, New Mexico, by arrangement with Harper-Collins and with the blessings of Hillerman himself, who loves Franklin’s depictions of his two Navajo detectives.

 

             (1)There is an edition of two thousand full cloth, hardbound copies, with the thirty plus Franklin illustrations and an introduction by Ernie Bulow.  The shelf size is the same as Hillerman’s recent books.  The book comes in a laminated, pictorial dust jacket. $30.00 unsigned and $100.00 for signed plus $8.50 priority postage.

            (2)There will also be a limited printing of five hundred copies with an extra-quality binding, foil stamped end-papers, limitation page, numbered and signed by Hillerman, Franklin and Bulow, ten tipped-in full page illustrations in color and a custom slip case. $200.

            (3)By special arrangement with Sidewinder Publishing, Ernest Franklin will do original drawings in one hundred copies of the trade edition—signed and numbered and slipcased—available from Buffalo Medicine Books as usual. $250.  He has agreed not to do extra illustrations in the super limited.

 The publisher intends to reissue all the early Hillerman mysteries, including the rare Fly on the Wall, in similar fashion over a period of three years.  Thus the collector will have uniform copies of The Blessing Way, Fly on the Wall, Listening Woman, Dance Hall of the Dead, Dark Wind, People of Darkness and Ghostway.  Sidewinder Publishing’s agreement with Harper-Collins forbids the sale of these books through any of the chain bookstores.

 The trade edition will retail for $30.  The limited will sell for $200.  Priority mail $8.50

Buffalo Medicine, with Navajo artist Ernest Franklin, will do an extra illustrated edition as we have done with Harper-Collins issues in the past.  Tony will sign a fine first printing, Franklin will add an original drawing, and the book will be packaged in a nice slipcase.  The Buffalo Medicine edition will sell for $250 plus $8.50 priority mail.  Franklin will begin drawing in March.