Hunting Badger
First edition cover
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| Author | Tony Hillerman |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Peter Thorpe |
| Country | USA |
| Language | English |
| Series | Joe Leaphorn/Jim Chee Navajo Tribal Police Series |
| Genre | Detective fiction |
| Set in | Navajo Nation in Southwestern United States |
| Published | 1999 HarperCollins |
| Media type | Print and audio |
| Pages | 275 |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 42475625 |
| Preceded by | The First Eagle, 1998 |
| Followed by | The Wailing Wind, 2002 |
Hunting Badger is the fourteenth crime fiction novel in the Joe Leaphorn / Jim Chee Navajo Tribal Police series by Tony Hillerman, first published in 1999.
Armed robbers at a Ute Indian gambling casino shoot two security guards, one fatally. Sgt. Chee gets involved in the hunt for the robbers, while retired Lt. Leaphorn gets drawn in by one who will not go to the FBI or local police. Chee and Leaphorn work together again.
Sophisticated robbers shoot the security guards at the Ute Casino, turn off the electricity and then steal the cash bagged and ready to be picked up for deposit to the bank. Cap Stoner is killed outright, while young Teddy Bye is severely wounded, but immediately suspected by the FBI as the "inside man" for the robbery. Chee returns from a long vacation in Alaska to be drawn into the investigation at the request of Officer Manuelito, who does not believe Bye is guilty. Roy Gershwin draws Leaphorn into the investigation by saying that he knows who did it, leaving a list of three names with Leaphorn. Why does he choose Leaphorn, and not the police or the FBI? The FBI announces that the perpetrators fled in an airplane stolen from Mr. Timms.
Chee and his friend Cowboy Dashee track the aircraft to the second landholding of Timms, so the murdering men are still on the loose. Leaphorn travels with Prof. Bourebonette, who is working near where some of the men on Gershwin's list live. Leaphorn finds Everett Jory in his house, shot dead, leaving a suicide note on his computer screen. The note names his two confederates in the crime, George Badger Ironhand and Alexander Buddy Baker, who misled Jory as to the use of the money. The pick-up truck parked at his place is the second seen at the Casino. The FBI gets active in the case again. The officer in charge, Mr. Cabot, directs a huge systematic search of the area near Jory's home (up near the border of Arizona with Utah), with the local police forces doing the searching. Prof. Bourebonette interviews a Ute woman with Leaphorn in company. The woman relates the story of Ironhand from the early 20th century, a man who fooled the Navajos in pursuit of him. He had a son who was a skilled fighter in the Vietnam War, still alive. About the same time, Chee visits his uncle Frank Sam Nakai, finding him mistakenly in a hospital. Once he and Manuelito move Nakai back to his home, Nakai warns Chee of Ironhand and the coal mine, and gives Chee his final lesson on the Nightway ceremonial. Then Nakai dies of lung cancer.
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