A Thief of Time is the eighth crime fiction novel Joe Leaphorn / Jim Chee Navajo Tribal Police series by Tony Hillerman, first published in 1988. It was adapted for television as part of the PBS Mystery! series in 2004. The story involves the lure of the thousand-year-old Anasazi ruins, a missing anthropologist, a stolen backhoe, people who steal ancient pots on reservation land and human ambition. Chee is pulled into the case by the stolen backhoe, while Leaphorn, now a widower, follows the trail of ancient pots bought and sold.