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The Dark Wind Cd

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"Enemies unseen... Fears unspoken...... A dark wind has entered his soul"

Navajo Tribal Police Sgt. Jim Chee seems to be batting zero; so far he has not been able to solve a series of seemingly unrelated crimes. In an area that was joint use land between the Navaho and the Hopi (now Hopi) Sgt Jim Chee is given the task of finding the vandal that keeps destroying a windmill placed there to make Hopi life easer. He hears an airplane landing in the dark of night with no lights. The plane crashes and leaves a dying pilot. Also a dead man sitting up against a rock with a note in his hand saying if you want it back contact...

Sgt Chee is told that it is probably drugs and federal jurisdiction. Chee is not supposed to go anywhere near or have anything to do with the case. He has his own problems with the mill, a missing thief, and a mysterious ritual death. Naturally he listens, and can not help it if they overlap.

One of the reasons for reading Hillerman's books maybe more important than the overlying mystery is the descriptions of the area and the Ways of the Navaho and Hopi. Hillerman suggests you also read "The Book of the Hopi" by Frank Waters.

Not as intricate as the book but still fun is the movie "Dark Wind" (Lou Diamond Phillips as Officer Jim Chee, Fred Ward as Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn)

Heard DARK WIND by Gordon Chaplin, a true story of a couple's
decision to ride out a tropical storm on their sailboat . . . it did not turn out as they had intended, and I was moved by what this account had to say about love, fate, risk-taking, and a whole lot more . . . this book is largely about the sea--ordinarily, not one of my favorite topics (perhaps, in large part, because I am not into sailing) . . . but because it also has plenty of adventure, romance and revenge, I was drawn into it right from the beginning . . . the narration by Paul Mitchell was excellent.

"The Dark Wind" is a very interesting book. It has a lot of suspense and Hillerman takes you into the book with his descriptions. This book is a murder mystery that keeps you thinking. It also keeps getting weirder as you read.
The book starts with three Hopi Indians walking up a trail and discovering a boot lying in the middle of it. They walk up the trail a little ways more and discover a dead body. The body was reported and picked up some time after the three Hopis discovered it. by the time it was recovered it couldn't be identified. Later in the book Jim Chee (the main character) is told to watch a windmill that has been vandalized two times before. in the middle of the night Chee hears a plane flying low, but cant see any lights from it. a short while later he hears a crash and goes to investigate. When he gets there he finds two people dead and one that is almost dead. He trys to find out what happened form the one that is alive, but he dies before he can say anything.
The book keeps going like this getting Chee mixed up in all of it. Chee knows he didn't do anything wrong, but he is the only one that thinks that he is innocent. Over all I would recommend this book to any body that likes mysteries or that just wants a book that makes you think and makes you feel like your right there with the characters

Hillerman does it once more with "The Dark Wind." An upright boot on a out-of-the-way trail leads to the discovery of a dead man, a man with the skin removed from his hands and feet. It is the beginning of a religeous period and they leave the body undisclosed. A windmill is vandilized and an airplane crashes in a remote area of the desert, Jim Chee sees it happen. Althought he is warned to not get involved, Jim works through the mystery tying the events together with his quiet plodding. "The Dark Wind", another winner for Tony Hillerman, will not disappoint avid Hillerman fans.
Beverly J Scott author of "Righteous Revenge" and "Ruth Fever." Reviewer for Intriguing Authors and Their Books at http://www.funeralassociates.com/authors.htm

Jim Chee witnesses a mysterious plane crash on a makeshift desert runway on the lonely Navajo reservation in Arizona. A body shows up near a Hopi village with the hands and feet skinned. A windmill is vandalized by persons unknown. Storm clouds herald a violent end to a drought that parches the high desert country.

Thus, Hillerman sets the scene for his story, the fifth in the Navajo Detectives series and the second with Sergeant Jim Chee of the Navajo Tribal Police as the main character. "Dark Wind" weaves into the story the religious ceremonies of the gentle Hopi Indians and the antipathy between village Hopi and sheep-herding Navajo. The story is overlaid by the natural splendor of the country and Chee's knowledge of his people and land are crucial to resolving the mystery, while the Federals - the FBI and the DEA - thrash around ineffectively

Hillerman has professed to be a little uncomfortable with his creation, Jim Chee, a young man with a stubborn, rebellious streak, one foot in the Navajo world and the other in the White man's. Chee demonstrates those characteristics in "Dark Wind" and is less likeable as a character than in other books in the series.

"Dark Wind" is a good tale -- but not the best of the series -- with a lot of intriguing insights into Hopi and Navajo folkways and philosophy. If you like the wide-open spaces of the American west, you'll like Tony Hillerman's books.

"The Dark Wind" is a great book by Tony Hillerman. It's about a mystery that just keeps getting weirder and weirder.
It starts when a couple of guys fishing run into a missing boot. As they walk farther they eventually find a dead body with no bottoms to the feat. These men get scared and then call the Navajo Tribal Police. Here we first see our protagonist Jim Chee. When the body is taken into the morgue Jim and some of the other policemen go to see who it is.
As they investigate the body they soon find out that the it had been there for a while because of the decomposing that had occured to it. Then after about a day or two it is revealed that the body is that of John Doe. Also because Chee was once a part of his Uncle's training in tribal rituals he knows that there were no bottoms to the feat because that's what a witch would use for his or her powder.
Soon Chee also learns of some even more troubling news. While at Chee's station he hears a low lying plane overhead. Since it is dark Chee cannot see the plane. Then about a minute later Chee hears a crash and decides to investigate.
When Chee finally arrives he finds three dead bodies and one almost dead. Chee trys to ask the dying man what happened, but not too soon after he dies. What adds more to the mystery is that he hears a car starting and running off away from the crash.Then to add even more to the suspense Chee learns that the plane was transporting illegal drugs; which turned out to be a shipment of cocaine.
Chee then notices that there were lanterns on the ground, probably to mark were the pilot was supposed to land. They had been moved so that the plane would crash! Chee realizes that the crash was no accident, but murder!
When Chee thinks that his day couldn't possibly be any worse he learns that someone had vandalized a windmill; which had previously been vandalized twice before.
Chee soon figures out that the plane and murder are none of his business, and that that job should be the FBI's job. Chee then starts to try and figure out who the vandalizer is , but has absolutely no fingerprints, footsteps, or just any evidence at all.
Chee thinks that it's all hopeless until two men from the DEA, (Drug Enforcement Agenecy) come to search Chee's house while he's sleeping. Chee wakes up and asks what they ae doing. Then the two men, Johnson and Collins, handcuff him and tell him to confess to the plane crash. Chee says he has nothing to do with it, but they dont buy it.
The two men eventually leave Chee's house saying that they'll keep an eye on him. Chee decides that he should take his vacation now and go to his Uncle's village. Chee trys to get there as soon as he can, but when Chee thinks that he will get a break he gets a lead on to the plane crash. He is told By a man named West that two men of the names Palanzar and Musket stole the cocaine.
The lead takes him no where and nothing has happened to the windmill in a long while. Chee thinks that Musket is the one who skinned John Doe, and that his Uncle might be able to answer his question.
Will John Chee's Uncle ever answer his burning question? Are the men Palanzar and Musket responsible for the plane crash, and will Chee ever catch the vandalizer of the windmill? To find you have to read the book!
I would recommend this book to good readers, but if your a slow reader this is not the book for you. The books about 300 pages and is pretty hard to understand sometimes. Overall it's a good book and would be enjoyed by many people.

"The Dark Wind" is a great book by Tony Hillerman. It's about a mystery that just getting weirder and weirder. It starts when a couple of guys fishing run into a missing boot. As they walk farther they eventually find a dead body with no bottoms to the feet. These men get scared and then call the Navajo Tribal Police. Then we first see our protagonist Jim Chee. Soon Chee also learns about another troubling case. After Chee receives the call he hears a low lying plane overhead. Chee then hears a crash and decides to investigate. When he arrives he finds four dead bodies, and later finds out that the plane was transporting crack. When Chee returns to his station he gets even more troubling news. He finds out that a windmill has been vandalized again. What's even more troubling is that this windmill had been vandalized three times before. Will Chee ever be able to find the perpertrator, will he be able to find what heppened to the crack, and will he be able to find out who's vandalizing the mill! Well you'll just have to read the book to see for yourself.

The book contains a fairly good mystery, although large parts are rather predictable. But Hillerman spends a major part of his novel on explaining Hopi religion and ways of life to the reader. That is not needed, to that extent, to understand the story. Therefore, it is bothersome.

Otherwise, it is another fine Hillerman book.

very little closure.

I've read this book twice now, and I would have to say that it is definitely one of Hillerman's better ones. I love the way Hillerman has characterized Chee with very simple sentences, reminiscent of Hemingway. They make Chee seem like a very uncomplicated, spiritual man, and a very thoughtful person. His verbal responses to some of the people in the book show his cleverness, especially when addressing the Hopi from the Fog Clan, but also show how guarded he can be in his responses. He's a very intelligent man, not your average cop, who is good at tracking and can read impressions left in the ground. To be expected, Chee also takes the tales told by his elders very, very seriously.

I also thought it was interesting to see a glimmer of prejudice from the Hopi people towards Chee. This was something different and a bit unexpected, but from a logical standpoint it makes sense. The Navajo and Hopi people have been enemies long before there were white men who wanted to settle the area.

As I understand it, Hillerman has been praised for his portrayal of Navajo culture. I would think that, if he were making the whole thing up, he would be denounced instead. I found one review here almost bordering on insulting. It seems to me that Hillerman has either done as much research as he could (and that's not hard to do, considering that the Navajoes are the largest population group of Indians left in America--there's an anthropology joke that goes something like "A Navajo family consists of a father, a mother, two children and an anthropologist") or had friends that could give him the information he needs. Hillerman has skillfully woven what he knows into this book. He doesn't use myths lightly--every mention of a myth or legend has a reason for being there. He even weaves in knowledge of Navajo clans, and brings in its importance much later in the book. As I read his books, I get a sense of respect from Hillerman whenever he describes the Navajoes or their culture. He also never uses their culture as a backdrop, there is always a reason for its use.

I would also say that Hillerman may also have an insight into the Navajo way of thinking that most people don't. I would think that a traditional Navajo, raised on a reservation, would have a different mindset than one raised in a city. Reservations tend to be very isolated, as I recall from my visits to Arizona and Utah, so it doesn't surprise me if the Navajoes raised there have a different way of thinking as a result of being raised in a more traditional way. A child's basic patterns are set by age 5, which is long before a child attends school, so the Navajo mindset would be instilled at this point. I didn't find Chee's lack of understanding to be something that Hillerman made up. I thought it was an interesting difference in the way Bible-raised whites (which is where the "eye-for-an-eye" phrase comes from!) and Navajoes see the world.

As for the plot, it's certainly a tangled tale. It's interesting how, in the beginning of the book, Chee has a bunch of cases that don't seem related to each other, but by the end of the book they all tie together. There's only one that doesn't fit, but that just makes it seem more realistic.

I also liked the introduction of Cowby Dashee, although there isn't much characterization of him. I would like to know why he's called Cowboy, but there never was an explanation. His reluctance to give Chee information on Hopi customs emphasizes the Navajo-Hopi prejudice that is present in the book (and I would have to say that it does not detract from the book, but makes Chee's work harder).

The only thing I did not like about the book was the ending. Chee gets rid of the evidence, but that doesn't help in terms of how he was going to explain to Largo what he was doing at the Hopi village in the first place. Considering the type of ceremony taking place in the last part of the book, I'm wondering how Chee got out of the handcuffs. I would have liked to see Largo's reaction to Chee's disobedience. Although the mystery is solved by the end of the book, it still leaves Chee's situation hanging in the balance. He may be out of danger, but he's still between a rock an a hard place.

In all, though, I found this to be one of Hillerman's better novels. He still has a good eye for detail, which really brings these books to life.

The great pleasure of Tony Hillerman's series of police procedurals--featuring Sgt. Jim Chee and/or Lt. Joe Leaphorn of the Navajo Tribal Police--lies not in details of procedure, nor cleverness of the puzzle to be solved, nor in particularly interesting characters. Many other series do these things better. What Hillerman really excels at is bringing alive a region of the country, the Four Corners in the Southwest, and an unfamiliar social milieu, the American Indian reservation. His writing evokes the rugged beauty and utter desolation of desert and mesa, and his descriptions of Navajo (and, in this novel, Hopi) religious beliefs and tribal customs portray a truly fascinating culture.

In Dark Wind, Chee must try to solve several cases : the fatal crash of a drug-running airplane; a jewel robbery; and the repeated sabotaging of a local windmill. They turn out, predictably, to be interrelated, and the conclusion is fairly pro forma. But then there's the almost incidental insight into Chee's way of thinking, when he's talking to the sister of the pilot who died in the crash :

'Do you understand "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth"?'

'I've heard it,' Chee said.

'Don't you believe in justice? Don't you believe that things need to be evened up?'

Chee shrugged. 'Why not?' he said. As a matter of fact, the concept seemed as strange to him as the idea that someone with money would steal had seemed to Mrs. Musket. Someone who violated basic laws of behavior and harmed you was, by Navajo definition, 'out of control.' The 'dark wind' had entered him and destroyed his judgment. One avoided such persons, and worried about them, and was pleased if they were cured of the temporary insanity and returned again to hozro. But to Chee's Navajo mind, the idea of punishing them would be as insane as the original act. He understood it was a common attitude in the white culture, but he'd never before encountered it so directly.

Now Hillerman may or may not have this stuff right, who knows. And I may think that many of the beliefs explored are so much hogwash. But somehow, the books give you the feeling that you're fulfilling that annoying old college requirement of "Knowledge of a Culture Other Than Your Own" in the most enjoyable way imaginable.

GRADE : B