The Fallen Man is a popular mystery novel that was written by the author Tony Hillerman. Like some of Hillerman’s other novels, this one has a Southwestern Navajo theme to it. Some of the characters in this book such as Lieutenant Jim Chee and Joe Leaphorn are characters from other Navajo themed books that Hillerman has written in the past.

In The Fallen Man, a skeleton is found seventeen hundred feet off of the desert floor on a rock known as Shiprock. The skeleton was discovered on Halloween and the rock that it was found on is considered to be one of the holiest places of Navajo religion. Joe Leaphorn, who is an ex-policeman, suspects that the skeleton is of a missing person whose case he investigated eleven years ago. The missing person's name was Harold Breedlove, and he came up missing while on his honeymoon. Foul play is suspected when the last person to see Breedlove alive is shot. The timing of these incidents is also a clue, because Breedlove stood to inherit a mining fortune on his thirtieth birthday.

Ex-cop Joe Leaphorn joins his former colleague Lieutenant Jim Chee to help solve this case. At the time, Chee is serving on the Navajo Tribal police department while working on a cattle rustling case. Leaphorn and Chee work together and dig up other clues that point them in the direction of a conspiracy. During this investigation, another man is killed and Lieutenant Chee comes close to death himself.