Copyright © 2003 NLThomas
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A Thief of Time, An American MYSTERY! Special Airs Sunday, November 16, 2003, 9 to 11 p.m.

Photo: Wes Studi as Joe Leaphorn and Adam Beach as Jim Chee By: Neil Jacobs for WGBH

Last season's inaugural Tony Hillerman adaptation Skinwalkers, an AMERICAN MYSTERY! special was hailed a "triumph" by the New York Daily News and "honest and arresting television" by the Washington Post, and enthralled an audience of about twelve million viewers.

Now MYSTERY! presents a new whodunit from Hillerman's bestselling novels featuring Navajo tribal cops Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee. A Thief of Time, airing Sunday, November 16, 2003, 9 to 11pm on PBS, with an encore broadcast on Wednesday, November 19, 8 to 10pm, delves into the netherworld of illegal archeological excavations and purloined pots, set against a backdrop of Navajo witches, spirits, and lore. (A third Hillerman title, Coyote Waits, airs in spring 2004).

Longtime Hillerman fan Robert Redford is again executive producer and Chris Eyre (Smoke Signals) is back as director of this Southwestern mystery, shot on locations throughout New Mexico.

Wes Studi (Dances with Wolves, The Last of the Mohicans) returns as Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn along with Adam Beach (Smoke Signals, Windtalkers) as Officer Jim Chee-seemingly mismatched partners who each pursue different paths to get to the bottom of a baffling case.

Also returning are Sheila Tousey as Leaphorn's stalwart wife, Emma, whose ill health has brought her back to traditional Navajo ways, and Alex Rice as Chee's dynamic lawyer-friend and love interest, Janet Pete.

Photo: Graham Greene as Slick Nakai By: Neil Jacobs for WGBH

Photo: Peter Fonda as Harrison Houk By: Neil Jacobs for WGBH

Guest-starring are Peter Fonda (Easy Rider, Ulee's Gold) as Harrison Houk, an unscrupulous rancher, politician, and pottery connoisseur, and Graham Greene (Dances With Wolves) as Slick Nakai, an evangelist who accepts stolen pots as prayer offerings.

The title refers to a cautionary poster displayed at the visitors center in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, which reads, "Thief of Time: Pot Hunters Destroy America's Past."

Indeed the pot hunters seem to be destroying not only the past but each other, since several are murdered while going about their illicit trade. But who is killing them, and why?

A Thief of Time opens with the mysterious disappearance of anthropologist Ellie Friedman-Bernal (Rosalia de Aragon), an expert on the vanished Anasazi culture.

Ellie's hyper-competitive colleagues, Maxie Davis (Dawn Lewis) and Randy Elliott (Lee Tergesen), claim to be clueless about her whereabouts. Hailing from a hard scrabble farm, Maxie is an improbable success at the academic game, while East-Coast patrician Randy is more at home as a scholar.

Meanwhile, evidence in Ellie's apartment hints that she may have been trying to penetrate the black market in ceramics illegally excavated from Indian lands.

Her cryptic notes lead Leaphorn and Chee to preacher/pot-fence Slick Nakai and his musician/accomplice Pete Etcitty (Kenneth White Eagle Wings), who later turns up dead-along with another pot poacher.

Then there are the rich, unsavory collectors Richard DuMont (James Pollard) and Harrison Houk, who was the last person to see Ellie alive.

And the vexing questions: Why did Ellie trade a saddle for a kayak just before she disappeared? Why does the crippled Houk himself own a kayak? And what's that hunched-over form in the shadows that looks strangely like Kokopelli, the flute-playing Navajo spirit?

A Thief of Time is co-produced by Granada US Productions and Wildwood Productions, in association with WGBH Boston. It is presented on PBS by WGBH Boston, and distributed worldwide by Carlton International. The individual producer is Craig McNeil. The executive producers are Robert Redford for Wildwood and Rebecca Eaton for WGBH Boston. The director is Chris Eyre. A Thief of Time is adapted by Alice Arlen (Silkwood, When Harry Met Sally) from the novel by Tony Hillerman. Funding is provided by PBS, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and Carlton International.

MYSTERY! is closed captioned for deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers, and described for people who are blind or visually impaired by the Media Access Group at WGBH. The descriptive narration is available on the SAP channel of stereo TVs and VCRs. MYSTERY! is presented on PBS by WGBH Boston, where Rebecca Eaton is executive producer. WGBH Boston is America's preeminent public broadcasting producer. One-third of PBS's primetime lineup and companion Web content, as well as many public radio favorites, are produced by WGBH. The station also is a pioneer in educational multimedia and in access technologies for people with disabilities.

A THIEF OF TIME is a PBS Program Club pick. PBS Program Clubs work like book clubs, but for TV. To learn more or to start your own club, visit PBS Program Club online.