Hunting badger

Review by Booklist Review

Hillerman returns to top form in this tale of a casino robbery in the Four Corners region of New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and Colorado. When the perps, who killed one guard and wounded another in the course of the robbery, vanish into one of the remote canyons of the region, tribal police are reminded of a similar case in 1998 in which an FBI-led manhunt was utterly bungled. Drawing on that real-life event, Hillerman builds a fine thriller from his traditional ingredients: Navajo lore, stunning natural landscapes, and the compelling personalities of his two tribal-cop heroes, Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee. Now retired, Leaphorn is drawn into the case when he notices a striking parallel to a Ute legend about a notorious thief who could disappear in a canyon only to reappear atop a mesa. With Chee feeding him information from the investigation, Leaphorn begins to formulate a theory. Along the way, we get glimpses into the evolving personal lives of both cops--Chee has ended one relationship and is on the verge of beginning another, while Leaphorn is still dealing with his wife's death. As with other long-running series, this one has fluctuated a bit in recent years between maintaining comfortable rhythms and slipping into a tired sameness. The rhythm is back this time, and all is well in Navajo country. --Bill Ott

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

---

Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Hillerman returns to his time-tested heroes, Navajo tribal police officers Sergeant Jim Chee and Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn (retired), for yet another satisfying mystery. For a listener, comfort comes with familiarity: the vivid sense of time and place conveyed. This is thanks in part to Guidall's reading, relaxed in its pacing yet sharp in its character development (demonstrating, once again, why he's considered to be among the best in the spoken-audio field). Based in part on a real 1998 case, the story concerns the armed robbery of a casino on the Ute reservation. The suspects have disappeared, and Chee has to see if he can find a local link to the crime. This involves lots of legwork, talking to local characters holed up in their remote trailer homes. Here Hillerman is in top form, creating dialogue that will bring listeners into real sympathy with the people and proceedings described. Also good on audio is Hillerman's strict sense of linear narrative, his respect for straight-ahead storytelling. Simultaneous release with the HarperCollins hardcover. (Dec.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

---

Review by Library Journal Review

Inspired by an actual 1998 manhunt on the Utah-Arizona border in which the FBI bungled the search for the killers of a police officer, Hillerman's (The First Eagle) latest mystery opens with the robbery of the Ute casino. The head of security is killed; a Navajo police officer working off-duty as a rent-a-cop is wounded; and the perpetrators flee into canyon country. Back from vacation, Jim Chee is reluctantly drawn into the hunt for the three men when officer Bernadette Manuelito, who has a crush on Chee, asks him to investigate the crime because Teddy Bai, the wounded officer, has been accused of being the inside man. Likewise, retired Lt. Joe Leaphorn gets involved when a rancher gives him the names of the perpetrators. What made Hillerman's early novels so compelling was the unique blend of Navajo lore, evocative Southwestern landscape, and intriguing mysteries. Unfortunately, in his later books the formula has grown stale; Hunting Badger offers a paint-by-the-numbers plot with cardboard villains. Still, diehard fans will want this. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 9/15/99.]ÄWilda Williams, "Library Journal" (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

---

Hunting Badger Chapter One Deputy Sheriff Teddy Bai had been leaning on the doorframe looking out at the night about three minutes or so before he became aware that Cap Stoner was watching him. "Just getting some air," Bai said. "Too damn much cigarette smoke in there." "You're edgy tonight," Cap said, moving up to stand in the doorway beside him. "You young single fellas ain't supposed to have anything worrying you." "I don't," Teddy said. "Except maybe staying single," Cap said. "There's that." "Not with me," Teddy said, and looked at Cap to see if he could read anything in the old man's expression. But Cap was looking out into the Ute Casino's parking lot, showing only the left side of his face, with its brush of white mustache, short-cropped white hair and the puckered scar left along the cheekbone when, as Cap told it, a woman he was arresting for Driving While Intoxicated fished a pistol out of her purse and shot him. That had been about forty years ago, when Stoner had been with the New Mexico State Police only a couple of years and had not yet learned that survival required skepticism about all his fellow humans. Now Stoner was a former captain, augmenting his retirement pay as a rent-a-cop security director at the Southern Ute gambling establishment -- just as Teddy was doing on his off-duty nights. "What'd ya tell that noisy drunk at the blackjack table?" "Just the usual," Teddy said. "Calm down or he'd have to leave." Cap didn't comment. He stared out into the night. "Saw some lightning," he said, pointing. "Just barely. Must be way out there over Utah. Time for it, too." "Yeah," Teddy said, wanting Cap to go away. "Time for the monsoons to start," Cap said. "The thirteenth, isn't it? I'm surprised so many people are out here trying their luck on Friday the thirteenth." Teddy nodded, providing no fodder to extend this conversation. But Cap didn't need any. "But then it's payday. They got to get rid of all that money in their pay envelopes." Cap looked at his watch. "Three-thirty-three," he announced. "Almost time for the truck to get here to haul off the loot to the bank." And, Teddy thought, a few minutes past the time when a little blue Ford Escort was supposed to have arrived in the west lot. "Well," he said, "I'll go prowl around the parking areas. Scare off the thieves." Teddy found neither thieves nor a little blue Escort in the west lot. When he looked back at the employees only doorway, Cap was no longer there. A few minutes late. A thousand reasons that could happen. No big deal. He enjoyed the clean air, the predawn high-country chill, the occasional lightning over the mountains. He walked out of the lighted area to check his memory of the midsummer starscape. Most of the constellations were where he remembered they should be. He could recall their American names, and some of the names his Navajo grandmother had taught him, but only two of the names he'd wheedled out of his Kiowa-Comanche father. Now was that moment his grandmother called the "deep dark time," but the late-rising moon was causing a faint glow outlining the shape of Sleeping Ute Mountain. He heard the sound of laughter from somewhere. A car door slammed. Then another. Two vehicles pulled out of the east lot, heading for the exit. Coyotes began a conversation of yips and yodels among the pinons in the hills behind the casino. The sound of a truck gearing down came from the highway below. A pickup pulled into the employees only lot, parked, produced the clattering sound of something being unloaded. Teddy pushed the illumination button on his Timex. Three-forty-six. Now the little blue car was late enough to make him wonder a little. A man wearing what looked like coveralls emerged into the light carrying an extension ladder. He placed it against the casino wall, trotted up it to the roof. "Now what's that about?" Teddy said, half-aloud. Probably an electrician. Probably something wrong with the air-conditioning. "Hey," he shouted, and started toward the ladder. Another pickup pulled into the employee lot--this one a big oversize-cab job. Doors opened. Two men emerged. National Guard soldiers apparently, dressed in their fatigues. Carrying what? They were walking fast toward the EMPLOYEES ONLY door. But that door had no outside knob. It was the accounting room, opened only from the inside and only by guys as important as Cap Stoner. Stoner was coming out of the side entrance now. He pointed at the roof, shouted, "Who's that up there? What the hell--" "Hey," Teddy yelled, trotting toward the two men, unsnapping the flap on his holster. "What's --" Both men stopped. Teddy saw muzzle flashes, saw Cap Stoner fall backward, sprawled on the pavement. The men spun toward him, swinging their weapons. He was fumbling with his pistol when the first bullets struck him. Hunting Badger . Copyright © by Tony Hillerman. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold. Excerpted from Hunting Badger by Tony Hillerman All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

---