Narcotics Control Division, Justice Department

Although the Narcotics Control Division of the Justice Department sounds familiar, it is a fictional agency that functions as a not-so-veiled reference to the U.S. Department of Justice's Drug Enforcement Administration. Hillerman deployed a similar device in his 1971 novel The Fly on the Wall, a political thriller that mixed legitimate and fictional agencies in a blend that evoked contemporary politics and politicians without pointing fingers at real agencies and real people.