Dark Winds (2022-2025) is an American thriller series based on the Leaphorn & Chee novels series by Tony Hillerman.

Zahn McClarnon as Joe Leaphorn and Kiowa Gordon as Jim Chee lead a mostly Native American cast. The show is set in the 1970s Four Corners area of the American Southwest and features the work of Navajo tribal police.

In Series 1, we find out that Bernadette Manuelito (Jessica Matten), a Navajo Police Sergent, was taken in by Joe Leaphorn and his wife, Emma (Deanna Allison) as a teenager.

During this series, the Leaphorns also take in pregnant teenager Sally (Elva Guerra).

The 3rd Care Experienced Character in Series 1 is extremist James Tso (Jeremiah Bitsui) who hated being in one of the notorious American Indian boarding schools so much he killed his grandfather because his grandfather sent him back to the school after he’d run away.

In Series 2, we’re not sure if the Caucasian American character, Colton Wolf (Nicholas Logas) was in the foster care system because his mother was imprisoned after murdering his father & sister, or whether he killed his mother because of what she’d done. Dark Winds presents Colton Wolf as a dangerous man still troubled by this early trauma.