Five More Detective sets added . . .

This is a FANTASTIC undertaking Lee!

The car models and attention to detail are terrific - You've done a wonderful job.

Curious about the Legacy Hotel in the Dragnet episode pictured above; does it have full Legacy functionality with a Cab2?

You have more imagination and fun than any one person ought to!

Leaphorn and Chee, weren't they characters in that series of Navajo Four Corners

mysteries?  Were there MOVIES based on those books?

Yes, Robert Redford made one, and there was a PBS series.

were either any good?

the books were superb.

Robert Redford's production of The Dark Wind was terrible.  There were protests by the Navahos and a lack of cooperation or something because he used Anglo actors and it didn't turn out well at all. I think it was released straight to video and never shown in theaters. 

The PBS series starred Wes Studi, a Cherokee, and Adam Beach, a Canadian Saulteau, as Leaphorn and Chee.   The direction was a bit too artsy for me - too much fancy cinematography and complex film-work at times, but Studi was really good. Beach didn't match my image of Chee, but despite that the three movies they made were good.  I thought Coyote Waits was particularly good. 

Tony Hillerman was and still is my favorite mystery writer.

Keep these stories coming.

Great thread! I look forward to the next detective on the block! Terry

In reply to a couple of e-mails, those are supposed to be feathers on Adela Bradley's head.  The series (and Mrs. Fisher's Murder Mysteries, too) is set in the flapper era when turban hats with feathers were big - uhhh -  popular (that hats were pretty small, actually.  On my layout, Adela is wearing a red turban with two verticle white feathers made from paper.  I could not find a picture from that scene but I attached one below of another ridiculous hat she wears in the series.  My wife loves her hats, by the way.

Edit: I'll quickly add this picture of my Tony Hillerman poster: the Leaphorn and Chee I think of come from this poster, not from the movies and this is how I modeled both.  I figure this is how he pictured them since he consulted on the artwork and signed the poster.

Don't forget Hercule Poirot

He's one of my favorites!  

Terrific idea for designing a theme for a model railroad town.

And you have done it justice.

my favorite TV detective was Peter Gunn.

Gunn drives a 1958 two-tone Desoto two door hardtop in the first few episodes of the first season, then a 1959 Pymouth Fury convertible with a white top and a mobile phone.

Pete's girlfriend, Edie Hart was a sultry singer employed at Mother's; she later opens her own place. Pete's pet name for Edie is "Silly".

Wandering down memory lane..... Thanks!

very cool vision and great idea adding life to the layout.

Lee: Shouldn't Kinsey Mahone be wearing that indestructible "little black dress"?

As to Diana Rigg, don't forget "The Avengers". She drove the Lotus, and John Steed drove plenty of one-of-a-kind antique vehicles.

I generally don't care for mysteries...but a friend loaned me several of the books, and

with the Four Corners, Navajo Reservation (upon which my brother and I had to push

start his IH Scout by rolling it down a slope and dumping the clutch),  Shiprock, Monument Valley, etc., you have my attention.  The only one I did not think was good was, I believe, the last one Hillerman wrote before he passed away.

I think Hillerman was pretty sick for a number of his final publishing years.  Starting with The Sinister Pig the stories started to get a bit weaker than the best earlier books, but frankly I loved the characters so much I didn't care.  I generally don't get too involved in or enjoy the personal lives of the characters in mysteries much, but I admit to wishing Hillerman had time to finish another book or two and tell a bit more about the romance between Leaphorn and Prof. Bourbonette. 

Although there are many "pretender"s I think only one current mystery writer comes close to Hillerman.  The Walt Longmire mysteries by Craig Johnson, set on the Cheyenne reservation, are not quite as good as mysteries although the characters and Indian lore are every bit as good.  The only thing currently being written that is as good, or better than Hillerman's books, as mysteries, are John Sanford's Virgil Flowers novels, but they're set in Minneapolis and lack the big sky country romance (but they are great police procedurals).  I'm thinking: I could add Sanfords two heros: Lucas Davenport ($900 suits, Porsche 911) and Virgil Flowers (pickup truck pulling a fishing boat, even when he's on a case).  I'll think about that. 

But I will add Walt Longmire to my layout (its a very good A&E TV series now), or more specifically, Longmire (Robert Taylor) and his very cool friend Henry Standing Bear (Lou Diamond Phillips) and Henry's two cars, a completely trashed 4x4 named Rezdog that is just too cool, and a pristine '59 Thunderbird convertible.