The Dark Wind (1982)

While I enjoyed this mystery thriller featuring Jim Chee, I found the solution fairly easy to figure out long before Chee did. ( )

Jim Chee is a strong character in this novel....a Navajo Tribal Policeman assigned to solve small crimes on the reservation. His duties are to investigate the repeated sabotage of a windmill, solve the killing of a man by a witch and to solve a robbery case. When a drug-running plane crashes and several people are killed, things get more bizarre. He uses Navajo culture and sensibilities to solve the crimes which are jurisdictionally complex. ( )

Jim Chee has been transferred to a team commanded by Captain Largo. His duties are to investigate the repeated sabotage of a windmill, solve the killing of a man by a witch and to solve a robbery case. When a drug-running plane crashes and several people are killed, things get more bizarre. The crash and related murders are outside of Chee's jurisdiction, but all the events seem interrelated.

The story takes the reader into the Navajo and Hopi cultures as Chee tries to sort things out. Even the cultures are tied into the crimes.

When the solution unravels, Hillerman has intertwined everything into a fully satisfying solution. ( )

One of the best for plot development and the mysterious method of the crime. Jim Chee is a strong character in this novel. Lost a star due to a serious flaw at the end. [Spoiler alert]: a glaring omission in the dénouement when two dealers turn up at a rendezvous, and one sneaks off presumably to cover eventualities as the heayweight. Except that's all that we ever hear of this character. He never reappears when the bust happens. The final scene was very Tony Hillerman, though, which always pleases me in its irony. ( )

Jim Chee is a Navajo Tribal Policeman assigned to solve small crimes on the reservation. He is expected to assist any Federal agency when requested. Once again, we are presented and instructed in the Navajo Way of life, the white man’s way of greed and disrespect, but we also learn how the Hopi Indians view their spiritual place in this world.
I was struck by the way the BIA and US Supreme Court disregard centuries of family living by ousting one tribe from an area they have occupied for generations and inserting a different tribe into their place; adding to the insult by providing greater services to the new occupants.
This is a mystery, there is murder, there is a search for cocaine and smugglers and I enjoyed the storyline. This is the second appearance of Jim Chee in the Leaphorn and Chee Novels series. He is a younger version of Joe Leaphorn, as Leaphorn is/was?,I am still trying to get a feel for who Jim Chee is and how he will acquit himself. Great series. ( )