HUNTING BADGER
Tony Hillerman - Harper Collins - £5:99
ISBN 0 00 651496 0

Review by Jean Currie

Sergeant Jim Chee of the Navajo Tribal Police hasn't a care in the world. He has returned to his home territory and still has five more days leave. He is even more pleased when he hears news on TV that the robbers of a casino on the Ute Reservation have escaped from his area. Once before he had been involved in a manhunt directed by the FBI in the mountains and it had dragged on for frustrating, exhausting, useless weeks.

His happy mood comes to an end when Officer Bernadette Manuelito asks him to help the security man who was shot in the robbery. The FBI believe he was the inside man and he is in hospital under guard but she is sure he is innocent.

Joe Leaphorn, Chee's ex-boss, known as the Legendary Lieutenant, who taught Chee all he knows about policing and is now retired, has also become involved. Together they use unconventional methods to search out the facts and because they know (or are in a position to learn) the ways, history and legends of the Utes and Navajos, they win through while the FBI despite their helicopters, modern equipment and highly paid men, flounder.

A fascinating book. Tony Hillerman is a terrific storyteller. Chee and Leaphorn make a great team, one provoking the other into another line of thought. They have no forensic skills but they have the expertise that has come from their early lives with their families in the mountains. They know the ways of nature, of animals, and the stories and traditions of their forefathers. They are observant and see things that the FBI, strangers to the mountains, rivers and canyons of Utah and New Mexico, miss.

Tony Hillerman takes the reader into this sparsely populated countryside to meet the people, good and bad, who have lived off the land for centuries, have learned to adapt their ways to the terrain and the climate, and want to protect themselves and their customs from 'civilisation'.

'Hunting Badger' is an enjoyable addition to this internationally acclaimed series.