Rating: 
Summary: Good Mystery
Review: 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
Rating:
Summary: Excellent. Just Excellent.
Review: I have read every one of Hillerman's books and now I am working my way through them as books on tape. Gil Silverbird read this book and he did a fantastic job.
"The Dark Wind" is one of Hillerman's best. He gives you a good solid bit of Native culture with a murder and a drug deal gone bad and it makes an unbeatable combination. Excellent.
Rating:
Summary: Cool Book!
Review: I loved this book. I couldn't put this book down because I never picked it up. I don't care if anyone thinks this review is not helpful. Nobody should make fun of a book. It's bad for the aurther of the book. Nobody better find this review helpful.
Rating:
Summary: Hillerman's fifth "Navajo Detectives" novel
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Hillerman's fifth "Navajo Detectives" novel
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Even better than the movie!
Review: So far, The Dark Wind is the only one of Tony Hillerman's novels to make it to the big screen, and while the movie is good, the book is even better. Jim Chee of the Navajo Tribal Police is up against drug runners and running into too many dead bodies in this murder mystery set on the Navajo Reservation in Arizona. Set against the back drop of the land dispute between the Hopi and Navajo, The Dark Wind explores Indian cultures and values as the mystery unfolds. And for the first time in Hillerman's series of Navajo murder mysteries, the reader meets Hopi police officer, Deputy "Cowboy" Dashee, the perfect foil for Jim Chee. This is one of Hillerman's best!
Rating: 
Summary: The usual Indians
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: A very complicated plot, but the ending provides...
Review: 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
Rating:
Summary: transportation
Review: 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
Rating: 
Summary: this book was extremely boring and pointless
Review: Though Mystery is not my favorite type of book I would expect much more from an author whom I have only heard good reviews. The Dark WInd is very slow , and very uninteresting. It is about a Navajo Police officer by the name of Jim Chee who investigates a plane crash and other various incidents even though "the white man told him not too." The book is very boring and did not pick up anywhere. Every time I sat down to read I would only wish I was somewhere else. It was astruggle to concentrate on the book and, I often had to reread pages. I would not reccomend this book to anyone ,except if you are a die hard Hillerman fan.
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