- Hardcover: 288 pages
- Publisher: Harper (July 15 1998)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0060175818
- ISBN-13: 978-0060175818
- Product Dimensions: 24.1 x 16.5 x 2.8 cm
- Shipping Weight: 567 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #996,271 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
It seems like July 8 is going to be a bad day for Acting Lieutenant Jim Chee. He's got a stack of overdue paperwork on his desk. Anderson Nez has died of plague, but the circumstances around the death are murky. His ex-fiancée, Janet Pete, is returning from Washington, D.C., and Chee doesn't know what to think about her last letter. (Will they be getting married this time?) And Officer Benny Kinsman's unwanted advances have enraged Catherine Pollard (among others), one of the scientists studying this newest outbreak of the black death. Now, the hot-headed Kinsman's gone off to nab a Hopi man who's poaching eagles. When Chee is called to back Kinsman up at Yells Back Butte, the bad day turns worse. He finds the young Hopi, Robert Jano, standing over Benny's mortally wounded body. Jano insists that he did not kill the police officer. Add to all this Joe Leaphorn's separate investigation, also involving July 8. Joe's got a new role as consulting detective to the wealthy--investigating the July 8 disappearance at Yells Back Butte of the same Catherine Pollard who was dogged by Kinsman.
This one bad day and the ensuing days of investigation bring Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee together once again as they uncover the secret of Yells Back Butte, plague fleas, and skinwalkers. As usual, Hilllerman's ear for dialogue is remarkable. One does not read Leaphorn and Chee's words and thoughts as much as hear them. While the book invites new readers (little knowledge of the previous books in the series is presumed), one has the sense of entering an old neighborhood where friends and relations are established and emotions run deep. Jim Chee's pain is vivid as he struggles under the shadow of Leaphorn and questions the "rusty trailer" lifestyle that has driven him apart from Janet. Nothing is contrived in his mixture of fear and elation when he and Janet meet again.
Hillerman has written an engaging novel that once again evokes the land and people of the Southwest while also confronting the cultural separateness of the region from the power centers of the East. Already honored for his previous work (Dance Hall of the Dead received the Edgar), The First Eagle is a welcome addition to the beloved Chee-Leaphorn series that began in 1971 with The Blessing Way. --Patrick O'Kelley
From Publishers Weekly
The modern resurgence of the black death animates Hillerman's 14th tale featuring retired widower Navajo Tribal Police Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn and Acting Lieutenant Jim Chee. Bubonic plague has survived for centuries in the prairie-dog villages of the Southwest, where its continuing adaptation to modern antibiotics has increased its potential for mass destruction. Leaphorn is hired by a wealthy Santa Fe woman to search for her granddaughter, biologist Catherine Pollard, who has disappeared during her field work as a "flea catcher," collecting plague-carrying specimens from desert rodents. At the same time, Jim Chee arrests Robert Jano, a young Hopi man and known poacher of eagles, in the bludgeoning death of another Navajo Police officer at a site where the biologist was seen working. As Leaphorn learns more about Pollard's work from her boss in the Indian Health Service and an epidemiologist with ties to a pharmaceutical company, the U.S. Attorney's office decides to seek the death penalty against Jano, who is being represented by Chee's former fiancee, Janet Pete, recently returned from Washington, D.C. Hillerman's trademark melding of Navajo tradition and modern culture is captured with crystal clarity in this tale of an ancient scourge's resurgence in today's world. The uneasy mix of old ways and new is articulated with resonant depth as Chee, an aspiring shaman, is driven to choose between his career and his commitment to the ways of his people, and Leaphorn moves into a deeper friendship with ethnology professor, Louisa Bourebonette. Author tour. (Aug.) FYI: Simultaneous release by HarperAudio in abridged ($25 ISBN 0-694-52011-X) and unabridged ($34.95 ISBN 0-694-52051-9) editions.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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First Sentence
The body of Anderson Nez lay under a sheet on the gurney, waiting. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
The body of Anderson Nez lay under a sheet on the gurney, waiting. Read the first page
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Concordance
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Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most helpful customer reviews
1.0 out of 5 stars
This book stinks,
By Billy (Stockbridge, MI USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The First Eagle (Mass Market Paperback)
I thought that the book was very boring and was really uninteresting. It started out o.k. I guess but after that it just started to drag on and wasn't interesting at all. I wouldn't recommend this book if you are looking for an exciting mystery, this isn't the book for you.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Another Winning Leaphorn Mystery,
By
This review is from: The First Eagle (Mass Market Paperback)
"The First Eagle", by Tony Hillerman, Audio Cassette version read by George Guidall, Harper Audio, 1998. Another good Jim Chee/ Lt. Leaphorn mystery, well done and very easy to read. I was steered to this book by checking library listings on the Black Plague and other airborne illness, after I had read "The Doomsday Book" by Connie Willis. The so-called hanta virus had affected, in particular, the Navaho Nation in the American Southwest. The disease, spread by the droppings of small mice and other rodents, provided an opportunity for a cottage industry to grow up in the Southwest where many aspiring Ph.D. students were attempting to make a name for themselves. In the midst of all this, Acting Lt. Jim Chee charges a Hopi Indian, caught while poaching eagles, with the murder of a Navaho Tribal Policeman. The Hopi was arrested red handed, literally!, and Jim Chee believes that he has an open and shut case. But, Chee's once and future fiancée, Janet Pete, returns from Washington, DC, as public defender, and, you guessed it, she is assigned to defend the Hopi The plot is twisted and involved enough, when retired Lt. Leaphorn is hired as a "private investigator" to look into the disappearance of Cathy Pollard, a researcher, who vanished on the same day the Navajo policeman was killed. Both Chee and Leaphorn are then immersed in the academic scene as they seek to sought out the involved relationships of prairie dog colonies, fleas, the Black Plague, the disappearance of Ms. Pollard, and the deaths of some Indians from the plague. Hillerman continues to develop the characters of Leaphorn and Chee. For example, there is a poignant scene in the hospital, where Leaphorn's memories of watching his wife, Emma, being wheeled away on a gurney, never to be seen alive again, are described. Leaphorn's life as a widower, also shows up now and then, as in the shower scene in the motel and, later, when he is enjoying eating another person's cooking in the restaurant. I have come to identify George Guidall's voice with Lt. Leaphorn, and, if I ever meet Tony Hillerman in person, I would expect him to sound like Mr. Guidall. Guidall does an excellent job of developing distinct vocal identities for each character, and his portrayal of FBI agents who have been hoodwinked by the "not-so-stupid" Tribal Policeman Lt Chee, is very appropriate. I enjoyed Guidall's reading of "The First Eagle" as I drove Interstate 495 around Boston. Hillerman has another winner.
1.0 out of 5 stars
Read the early ones!,
This review is from: The First Eagle (Mass Market Paperback)
Read the early ones -- "Blessing Way" and so forth. They are wonderful -- funny, suspenseful, warm, and very visual -- with interesting depictions of Navajo life. The later ones attempt to deal with Big Issues and have somehow lost most of the warmth, humor, team interaction amongst the police -- and the local and cultural color. ...and this is definitely not one to read when eating!
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