Hunting Badger - Softcover

Hillerman, Tony

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0061967823 ISBN 13: 9780061967825

Publisher: HarperCollins, 2010

Synopsis

Three men raid the gambling casino run by the Ute nation and then disappear into the maze of canyons on the Utah-Arizona border. When the FBI, with its helicopters and high-tech equipment, focuses on a wounded deputy sheriff as a possible suspect, Navajo Tribal Police Sergeant Jim Chee and his longtime colleague, retired Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn, launch an investigation of their own. Chee sees a dangerous flaw in the federal theory; Leaphorn sees intriguing connections to the exploits of a legendary Ute bandit-hero. And together, they find themselves caught up in the most perplexing--and deadly--criminal manhunt of their lives.

About this title

Review

The marvellous Hunting Badger is Tony Hillerman's 13th 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 routinely cross) are working two angles of the same case: Catching 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 hearing that many Navajo readers assumed that he himself was Navajo--he's not.)

While first-time readers will find plenty to enjoy in Hunting Badger, it holds special pleasures for long-time fans. There's more and deeper contact between Leaphorn and Chee and we continued to see deeper into the prickly Leaphorn's human side (though presented 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 realise just how superior he is to the rest of the pack. --Nicholas H. Allison

Review

"Irrestible."--Los Angeles Times

"Tony Hillerman is a wonderful storyteller....Surrendering to Hillerman's strong narrative voice and supple storytelling techniques, we come to see that ancieant cultures and modern sciences are simply different mythologies for the same reality."--New York Times Book Review

"His best."--Rocky Mountain News

"Hillerman soars."--Boston Globe

Complex, engrossing...On their own, (Leaphorn and Chee) are compeling; as a duo they 're the best since Lennon and McCartney."--Washington Post Book World

Edition details

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0061967823
• ISBN 13: 9780061967825
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 265