Product Description

When Acting Lt. Jim Chee catches a Hopi poacher huddled over a butchered Navajo Tribal police officer, he has an open-and-shut case--until his former boss, Joe Leaphorn, blows it wide open. Now retired from the Navajo Tribal Police, Leaphorn has been hired to find a hot-headed female biologist hunting for the key to a virulent plague lurking in the Southwest. The scientist disappeared from the same area the same day the Navajo cop was murdered. Is she a suspect or another victim? And what about a report that a skinwalker--a Navajo witch--was seen at the same time and place too? For Leaphorn and Chee, the answers lie buried in a complicated knot of superstition and science, in a place where the worlds of native peoples and outside forces converge and collide.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #23977 in Books
• Published on: 1999-07-01
• Released on: 1999-06-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 336 pages

Amazon.com Review
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.

From School Library Journal
YA-Acting Lieutenant Jim Chee of the Navajo Tribal Police is investigating the murder of a fellow officer-apparently committed by a young Hopi poaching eagles for ceremonial purposes. Chee's former mentor, Joe Leaphorn, is now retired and on his first case as a private detective, looking for a missing biologist who has been studying the spread of infectious diseases on the reservation. The men's destinies intersect once more in this case in which clues, like eagles, can only be found and understood by those who belong to the world of the reservation. Hillerman communicates a sense of the great space, beauty, and physical hardship of the desert landscape, and of the character of the people who live there. The mystery is set against a cultural backdrop of conflicts between Navajo and Hopi, Tribal and FBI law enforcement, sheep camp and city Navajo, and government and academic scientists studying disease outbreaks. The solution to the murder mystery comes stunningly into focus once the clues are all present and understood-but sadly (and true to life), the larger question of justice on the reservation, like the fate of the first eagle, is left unresolved. A disturbing but fascinating story.
Christine C. Menefee, Fairfax County Public Library, VA
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

One to pass the sleepless nights with...
Okay, so "Eagle" and for that matter "Falling Man" weren't up to the standards set by "Talking God"/"Coytoe Waits," but it's still a fine read. The pages seem to turn themselves and suddenly what started as "only one chapter" has turned into half the book.

The Jim Chee/Joe Leaphorn relationship is in top form, and I believe most people can remember a time when they were the very junior member of a working relationship. It's very easy to be dazzled and intimidated by someone for years. It's also understandible the inevitible dread that Leaphorn brings into Chee's life. Seeing him usually means that Chee messed up somewhere along the line, and nobody likes to be reminded of that.

Being from Shiprock, I love reading about my home. Hillerman's descriptions are dead-on of the land, the terrain and the people. I adored this novel for its sensitive handling of the hauntavirus crisis and the terror it invokes every year. Hilerman knows, understands.

I realize that anglos not native to the four corners area feel an intellectual pride in reading Hilerman. I wish they wouldn't. I don't know how many times people have given me some sort of spiel about how connected they feel to me because they read "Skinwalker". Hilerman's a great writer, granted, but I'm not a character in his book.

Exploring The Landscape Of Culture
Tony Hillerman novels explore two landscapes - the red rock/AAA Indian Country map landscape and the landscape of intersecting cultures and law enforcement agencies. The First Eagle spends most of its time in the second landscape, and for that reason, it's good police procedural and good but not great Hillerman. Chee is now an Acting Lieutenant and Leaphorn is retired [but still the Legendary Lieutenant Leaphorn in Chee's mind]. Despite the fact that Chee is a cop and Leaphorn is trying out the role of private investigator, our two main characters still solve the crime when they put their heads together. This is a story of agencies - health agencies looking for plague bacteria and hantavirus and law enforcement agencies looking for killers and good press. Differing points of view provide much of the tension in the story [Hopi v. Navajo, Washington v. the rez, Jim Chee v. Janet Pete, the truth v. political gain]. Yells Back Butte is the place where Jim Chee's murder investigation and Joe Leaphorn's missing person case intersect. If you must have lots of red rock in your Hillerman, First Eagle may disappoint you. I enjoyed The First Eagle, but not enough to give it the fifth star. A plea to all mystery reviewers: please don't give away the ending! I read some of the reviews on this site when I was part way through the book and one of the reviews gives away too much information about the killer while stating the reasons for the reviewer's displeasure.

A familiar old friend
I understand why some of the other reviewers say that this is one of Mr. Hillerman's weaker efforts, however, I disagree with the conclusion that he is coasting. When I first began the book it was like meeting an old friend, all of the familiar likeable characters are there as is the imagery. If they are present in a lesser degree than in earlier works, I think it because Mr. Hillerman is justifiably building on the earlier works. There is no need to re-invent the wheel. The work also shows its quality in the development of even minor characters such as Mac Guiness. He and his trading post have been seen throughout the series but in First Eagle Tony Hillerman has visibly aged each. You can almost see the dust in the trading post and smell the stale whiskey. This "character-aging" is poignant with the current condition of Jim Chee's uncle Hosteen Nicae. Moreover, the plot is chilling and intelligently developed. Tony Hillerman has hit upon a real, significant issue. The medical-scientific discussions were lucid and well thought out. Finally, Jim Chee should definitely dump Janet Peet.