The First Eagle
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Average rating4.3
Loaded with e-book extras (not available in the print edition), including Tony Hillerman's running commentary on his work, his series heroes Leaphorn and Chee, and a special profile of the Navajo nation.When Acting Lt. Jim Chee catches a Hopi poacher huddled over a butchered Navajo Tribal police officer, he has an open-and-shut case -- until his former boss, Joe Leaphorn, blows it wide open. Now retired from the Navajo Tribal Police, Leaphorn has been hired to find a hot-headed female biologist hunting for the key to a virulent plague lurking in the Southwest. The scientist disappeared from the same area the same day the Navajo cop was murdered. Is she a suspect or another victim? And what about a report that a skinwalker -- a Navajo witch -- was seen at the same time and place too? For Leaphorn and Chee, the answers lie buried in a complicated knot of superstition and science, in a place where the worlds of native peoples and outside forces converge and collide.
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Series
23 primary books#13 in Leaphorn & Chee
Leaphorn & Chee is a 23-book series with 24 primary works first released in 1970 with contributions by Tony Hillerman, Steve Levine, and Anne Hillerman.
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What can I say, I love Leaphorn & Chee! I read this over a very gray and rainy few days in the Pacific Northwest, so it was really nice to be transported mentally to the sunny Southwest (although Hillerman is also adept at capturing the drama of a desert thunderstorm). These mysteries are so reliable - good plot, main characters you really root for, and respectful cultural detail (Google tells me that the Navajo Nation gave Hillerman their “Special Friend of the Dineh” award in 1987 for the strength and dignity of Navajo culture he accurately captured; this novel also has elements of Hopi culture). My only quibble is that I could have done without the romance piece - it is aligned with their personalities for both Chee & Janet Pete to be reserved with each other, but their guarded distance is distractingly painful in this book and much less fun to read than the other elements of the plot. This was also an interesting time to read this particular novel, because the plot centers around the threat of pandemic disease. I wish it felt more speculative than it does in 2021.
