| The best surprise about “The First Eagle,” Tony Hillerman’s smart new crime novel, is that there aren’t many surprises. Hillerman brings back his stalwart Navajo Tribal policemen — Acting Lieutenant Jim Chee and retired Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn — and sets the book’s action in the Four Corners area of the Southwest, where several states, as well as several Indian reservations and a number of Indian and white cultures, meet. The result is a thriller that’s full of insight and subtle humor, one that easily transcends the genre.

Before he turned to fiction, Hillerman covered the crime beat for a number of newspapers, and his books have the kind of verisimilitude that can’t be faked. Even his dialogue has a sturdy rhythm; you feel you’re eavesdropping on actual conversations and jokes. In “The First Eagle,” he alternates between two cases: Chee’s investigation of the death of Benjamin Kinsmen, a fellow Navajo policeman, and Leaphorn’s search for missing biologist Catherine Pollard, who’s studying the spread of bubonic plague on the reservation.

In his search for Pollard, Leaphorn employs both conventional and unconventional methods: He seeks out not only biologists who have worked with the woman, but also a local trader who’s heard talk of witchcraft. Meanwhile, Chee must deal with a Hopi man caught at a murder scene on land shared by both the Navajo and the Hopi. After seeking advice from his mentor and great uncle, he employs a traditional hunting ritual (among other things) in an attempt to prove that the man is innocent.

For Hillerman’s longtime readers, the nuances of his characters’ lives are as interesting as anything in his plots. And while Leaphorn’s and Chee’s work is informed by a traditional Navajo understanding of “beauty” and “harmony,” Hillerman doesn’t lionize this pair — they’re not flawless and noble. Each seems to be at a crossroads: Leaphorn’s wife has died of cancer, and that experience haunts him throughout this story. (What’s more, he can’t seem to give up police work, despite being officially retired.) For his part, Chee is ambivalent about a possible promotion because it might force him to leave the reservation. His romantic relationships are just as tortured.

Hillerman was referring to the Native American writers Leslie Marmon Silko and M. Scott Momaday when he once said, “They are artists. I am a storyteller.” He’s being modest. Hillerman’s storytelling is its own kind of folk art; few writers in any genre are as adept at creating such textured environments while also keeping us glued to our seats.

The best thing about “Like a Hole in the Head,” the first novel from a young playwright named Jen Banbury, is the main character. In a world that’s crammed with anomie, she has what it takes to be a contender when trouble comes looking for her. Banbury has what it takes, too — she writes like a wonderfully feminized Dashiel Hammett, with enough literary sensibility and good humor to pop her cleanly out of the mystery genre.

Banbury’s protagonist, Jill, is an underemployed bookstore employee in Los Angeles. Young, unambitious — unlike everyone else she knows, she has zero interest in acting — and often hungover, Jill is fed up with humanity. She seems almost pleased when she confesses, “I couldn’t remember the last time I had sat across from someone in a restaurant.” Banbury’s tale comes to life when Jill is offered the chance to make some big money on a rare first edition of Jack London’s “The Cruise of the Snark.” Instead of buying it for her boss, she plans to keep the book and sell it to one of the other bookstore owners who frequent the shop. What begins as a simple business transaction quickly becomes a nightmare when a whole slew of (often violent) book lovers come gunning for her. In her own loner, pulp hero fashion, Jill does her best to fend them off.