The First Eagle (Hardcover)

The police investigation begins when one of their own, Officer Kinsman, is killed by a Hopi poaching eagles on the reservation. Chee catches the man red-handed (with blood) and arrests him. Meanwhile, Leaphorn has been asked to try and find Catherine Pollard, a young biologist who has been working for the health service on the plague problem. As the separate investigations progress, their paths begin to converge.

To complicate matters, Chee is surprised and guardedly optimistic to find his one-time fiance has returned from Washington, and she is working with the public defenders office and will be defending the Hopi. He agonizes over whether her feelings have changed and is noncomittal when the prosecutor and FBI agents ask about his relationship with her.

Much hinges on whether there were one or two eagles captured by the Hopi, and what has happened to the missing health services investigator. Is she alive? Did she kill Kinsman? Or is the Hopi guilty after all?

This is another of Hillerman's good, simple mysteries involving two of the favorite policemen in the southwest. Readers of Hillerman's mysteries might also enjoy those written by Dick Francis. Although taking place in England, for the most part, they are as clearly written and have heroes of the same caliber.

Instead, we get a short crash course in infectious diseases, including the bubonic plague and hantavirus, among others. A Navajo dies of plague, and a Navajo policeman is murdered, apparently by a Hopi who's poaching eagles on the Navajo reservation. Chee (now an acting Lieutenant in the Navajo tribal police) catches the poacher leaning over the dead cop, makes the expected deduction, and arrests him. Things heat up a bit when he discovers that his old flame, Janet Pete, is back from Washington and coincidentally acting as the poacher's defense attorney.

I like Tony Hillerman, and I liked this book. It did lack some of the atmosphere of some of his earlier novel, as there isn't much of the tribal mysticism that made other books so interesting, but it is a good story and fun.