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- Mass Market Paperback: 352
pages ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.98 x 6.72 x 4.19
- Publisher: Morrow Avon;
(January 2001)
- ISBN: 0061097861
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Book
Description
Three armed men raid the Ute tribe's
gambling casino, and then disappear in the maze of canyons on
the Utah-Arizona border. The FBI takes over the investigation,
and agents swarm in with helicopters and high-tech
equipment.
Making an
explosive situation even hotter, these experts devise a theory
of the crime that makes a wounded deputy sheriff a suspect -- a
development that brings in Tribal Police Sergeant Jim Chee and
his longtime colleague, retired Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn to help.
Chee finds a fatal flaw in the federal theory and Leaphorn
sees an intriguing pattern connecting this crime with the
exploits of a legendary Ute hero bandit. Balancing politics,
outsiders, and missing armed fugitives, Leaphorn and Chee soon
find themselves caught in the most perplexing -- and deadly --
crime hunt of their lives....
The marvelous Hunting Badger is
Tony Hillerman's 14th novel featuring Navajo tribal police
officers Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee. Here the two cops (who
appeared in separate books early on but whose paths now cross
routinely) are working two angles of the same case to catch the
right-wing militiamen who pulled off a violent heist at an
Indian casino.
Hillerman serves up
plenty of action and enough plot twists to keep readers off
balance, leading up to a satisfyingly tense climax in which
Leaphorn and Chee stalk a killer in his hideout.
But through it all,
the cardinal Hillerman virtues are in evidence: economical,
pellucid prose; a panoply of Indian-country characters who seem
to rise right up off the page; vivid evocations of the
Southwest's bleak beauty; and rich insights into Navajo life and
culture. (Hillerman once told an interviewer that the highest
compliment he'd ever received was many Navajo readers'
assumption that he himself is Navajo--he's not.)
While first-time readers will find
plenty to enjoy in Hunting Badger, it holds special
pleasures for longtime fans. There's more and deeper contact
between Leaphorn and Chee, and we continue to see further into
the prickly Leaphorn's human side (though without fuss or
sentimentality).
Chee finally begins to get over Janet
Pete (it took about six books) and inch toward a new love
interest. And in a moving section involving Chee's spiritual
teacher Frank Sam Nakai, the shaman provides a key insight into
the case.
In a world teeming with "sense of
place" mysteries--set in Seattle, Alaska, the Arizona
desert, or Chicago--it can be a shock to return to Hillerman,
who started it all, and realize just how superior he is to the
rest of the pack. --Nicholas H. Allison
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