Plane Crash Brings Mystery
I have three authors I’m rotating on audio at the moment, and I got to all three recently. The one I had the most trouble getting was the oldest, The Dark Wind, the fifth in Tony Hillerman’s Leaphorn and Chee series. Maybe that was because of the show on AMC that uses this book as the name of the show? Either way, I’m glad the wait at the library, where I get all my audios, wasn’t too long since I enjoyed it.
While this is the fifth in the series, it’s the second to feature Jim Chee, and he still hasn’t really interacted with Joe Leaphorn yet. Not that I’m complaining too loudly since it is nice to get to know them separately for now. Anyway, Chee has moved to a new police station on the Navajo reservation, and he’s struggling to solve cases now that he’s in an area where he isn’t familiar with the residents and they don’t yet trust him. For example, he’s supposed to be solving the case of a John Doe, but he can’t even figure out who the man was. And he is supposed to stop the repeated sabotage of a windmill, but there are no clues.
When Chee decides to spend a night staking out the windmill in the hopes of catching the vandal in the act, he is on hand when an airplane crashes nearby. A plane that was running without lights and flying below the radar. Clearly, it’s a Federal case, and Chee doesn’t intend to get involved. But the Feds seem to think he is involved. Can he figure out what happened without looking any more guilty?
This book came out in the early 80’s, and books were different back then. This really could be read as a standalone. There is no discussion of his personal life, including the potential love interest introduced in the previous book. We get some discussion about his family, but don’t meet them. In fact, if you wanted to jump in here, you easily could.
Now, this isn’t to say that the characters are bad. They might not be how we expect them to be today, but they are still interesting a fleshed out enough for us to care about the outcome.
The focus is on the mystery with little in the way of subplots to distract us, and it is very well done. There are enough complications to keep us engaged in the story, but when Chee pieces things together, they made sense. I even let a red herring distract me at one point.
As always, the land of the reservation comes to life as we read the book. And we get some more insight into Navajo culture without it slowing down the story.
I mentioned earlier that I read this via audiobook. George Guidall is still doing an excellent job of narrating these stories for us.
All told, The Dark Wind is a strong second outing for Jim Chee. While I’m anxious for him to team up with Leaphorn, I’m enjoying getting to know him on his own for now.
Here are the rest of the Leaphorn and Chee novels.
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