Rating: 
Summary: Needlessly Repetitive to Make the Story More Interesting
Review: This is the first Hillerman story I've read, so I understand that I'm missing a bunch of background on the Chee and Leaphorn characters and my overall enjoyment might be hindered. However, of the 350 pages or so of this book, at least 50 could be eliminated due to the repetitive writing. The same bits of story being told two or even three times for no apparent reason. I found myself wondering, again and again, if I had already gone over something only to realize that yes, I had!I am all for a story languidly and specifically unwinding toward its conclusion, as this one does. I think, however, that it needs to be done with some forward momentum and it needs to be able to maintain a certain level of interest for the reader. The writing here is weak and the story, not just obvious, is really just kind of boring. I am looking forward to trying out another title in Hillerman's canon with better results.
Rating: 
Summary: Good Read as always
Review: As others have said, this is not the best but it seems to me to be editing problems. I have a hunch there were scenes left out better left in. I am really enjoying the developing characters and relationships. I enjoy that Chee and Leaphorn are actually realizing friendship and really hope to see it become a more solid and personal relationship. I disagree with another reader that Pete and Chee hardly had a relationship. But, it was never an easy one and like many young people it was not the level that should lead to marriage and I am relieved to see it come to this. Chee is exactly the type of romantic young man that would jump to this level in each relationship. I think Bernie is a great character but I hope that he doesn't "fall" for her quickly. I think Chee finally needs a friend first, much as the well developing relationship with Leaphorn and Bourbonette is taking. My burning question, laugh though you will, is HOW DID CHEE GET THE CAT BACK?? I really thought that it would be covered. DId Mary ship him a kitten? Was there another one out there? A cat seems like a perfect companion for Chee but where the heck did this one come from? I suspect, again, that editing fervor chopped out this piece of info. The one other thing that bothered me was that Nakai's revelations to Chee did not seem to have more immediate impact. Instead, seems like that got sidelined (the impact more so than the use of the info). Still, like always a good read. I hesitate to try any other book in the genre Hillerman fathered, because I know I would miss all the little daily, ordinary stuff anyone else would not take time to craft. The slow unfolding of the life is what I love about these novels. Slow but never, in my opinion, boring. I like that. Makes me feel like breathing.
Rating: 
Summary: 'Hunting Badger'--Hillerman in top form!
Review: In "Hunting Badger," Tony Hillerman's continuation of the Lt. Joe Leaphorn
and Jim Chee mystery, the author once more captures, with vivid description,
riveting detail, exciting plot, and superb characterization, life on and about the
Navajo reservation. Leaphorn and Jim Chee team up once again to solve a crime in the Four Corners
canyons. Hillerman takes a real-life crime (In 1998 three "survivalists" steal a truck,
murder a policeman, and then disappear. The FBI and other law organizations fail
in their investigations.) and adapts it to his own fictional form. He does so,
upholding once more his reputation as one of the most exciting writers around. His
"police procedural" is in a unque--and original setting--in the middle of the Navajo
nation. "Hunting Badger" takes us in and around and through the ins and outs of that area
before finally climaxing in triumph for Leaphorn and Chee, not to mention
Hillerman. This is perhaps his most suspenseful book in some time. It's good to
read Hillerman when he's in top form and this edition fully lives up to his
reputation! (Billyjhobbs@tyler.net)
Rating:
Summary: 'Talking God' is no 'mumbo-jumbo'!
Review: In this, the ninth Joe Leaphorn/Jim Chee mystery, Tony Hillerman moves outside
his favored Navajo nation to the streets and museums of Washington DC. In
"Talking God," Hillerman's police duo combine their skills once more for a riveting
Hillerman police procedural. Both men are pursuing different crimes, and both end
up in the nation's capital in an exciting run. Chee is in Washington to arrest Henry
Highhawk, a Smithsonian curator and native American, for plundering the bones
of their ancestors; Leaphorn is looking for the identity of a murder victim. As
always, Hillerman provides much local color, culture, and socio/economic dynamics
of the Navajos, many of whom are grasping quite desperately at maintaining a
balance between their history and the present day sets of values. At the same
time,"Talking God" is a compelling, gripping read in true Hillerman fashion. (Billyjhobbs@tyler.net)
Rating: 
Summary: Rather juvenile
Review: It's not a bad book and there are some interesting twists in the plot but it's written at a pretty low level. If Hillerman had put a little more time into it, he could have spruced it up into a great book.
Rating:
Summary: ????? I was confused throughout......
Review: After reading this book, which I received as a "freebie" from a book club, I went to see the amazon.com ratings. Seeing the high ratings prompted me to rate a 3 instead of the 1 or 2 stars I considered.
It appears Mr. Hillerman has written numerous other books with some of the same characters. Other authors do this and you can pretty much jump right in. In the case of "Hunting Badger" I was left clueless regarding some of the characters.
Whatever happened to Cowboy Dashee? Jim Chee? Bernie? Primm? Was anyone brought to justice? What about Bai? That was a weird twist for him. Maybe I should have given it a 2 star rating.
I loved the story setting and found Mr. Hillerman's writing gave me vivid mental pictures of areas totally foreign to me. I enjoyed his "painting" of the setting. Still, I wish he could have clued me in on what went on before this book.
Rating:
Summary: I Enjoyed This Book
Review: I enjoyed this book. I am a huge fan of mysteries, especially mysteries like this one. Tony Hillerman is a fine story teller, and he captures the multicultural aspects of the American southwest perfectly. Hunting Badger is a terrific book.
Rating:
Summary: hillerman befogged
Review: i am a long time fan of tony hillerman but this one has tested my loyalty. no question that it was abysmally edited but has anyone stopped to puzzle out where the villain at the end managed to get his truck loaded with the missing money since he's hardly had time to arrive and shoot up his partners. hillerman must have been working on a bad batch of peyote. harper collins should be ashamed of themselves
Rating:
Summary: Premature Publication?
Review: I'll preface this with the statement that I'm a HUGE Hillerman fan, and have never been disappointed by his novels to any degree, and I've read all of the Navajo series, and Saving Moon. This story strikes me as unpolished and poorly edited, almost as though Mr. Hillerman was under undue pressure to get the book finished. I encountered with awe what appeared to be a rewrite of a conversation between Chee and Leaphorn (regarding coal mining sites). The conversations were repeated within 30 pages of each other (clearly as if they hadn't already discussed it) with only minor changes! There was a typo referring to Chee as Cree, and most dismaying, both Chee and Leaphorn seemed to be so weakly drawn that anyone picking up this book without having read the others could not possibly appreciate the great intelligence, honour and warmth both of these characters have always exhibited. I would welcome changes reflecting the natural progression of their ages and experiences, but in Hunting Badger they appear slow, insecure, dense and vague. If this is a case of publisher pressure: back off and let the man do his gifted best. PLEASE. If not, don't hold this book against Mr. Hillerman. He's a wonderful writer and this series will endure in my heart despite the apparent carelessness with which Hunting Badger was handled.
Rating:
Summary: This may not be one of Hillerman's best books...
Review: but I'd still recommend it. Hillerman's writing is, as always, excellent. I think, though, that in this particular novel, his characterization is weak and the plot is more predictable than in his other books. I read this book in one night, and it was a fairly easy read. Unfortunately, I was able to predict most of the "upcoming events" in the novel fairly well, and I was also right (much to my dismay, I prefer to be kept guessing!) I've always liked Hillerman's books because of the fact that he starts out with little pieces of the mystery and by the end has them all woven into a coherent whole--without giving any of the upcoming plot away. In this particular novel, it's too easy to see how they all fit together long before the novel ends. More specifically, I would say that I had the issue of the plane worked out long before Chee did, and the badger reference worked out long before it became a gleam in Leaphorn's eye. The characterization here was a bit weak. Maybe I missed one of the novels, but I didn't recall anything about Janet Pete and Chee having much of a relationship. I can't help but notice she's been dismissed so that Chee can find a full-blooded Navajo for a girlfriend. I think it would have been more interesting to have her wanting to return to her roots and the struggle she would have to undergo to make that work out. But here she's been dismissed as being corrupted because she's half white and she's lived in the cities too long. As a replacement, Leaphorn seems to be considering a relationship with the Professor (I can't remember her name), and of course a union between them wouldn't produce any children that were half white and half Navaho. Chee and Leaphorn didn't remind me of the Chee and Leaphorn in the other novels, and I think this has a lot to do with the way Hillerman's writing style has changed with this novel. He used to describe Chee's movements in a way that characterized Chee as a slow, thoughtful character whose actions were very deliberate and with a lot of purpose (and if I'm not mistaken, Chee in one of his novels was called "Long Thinker" or something like that). Simple sentences, which evoked the patience and thoughtfulness, but also the simplicity and spirituality of this character, have been removed and replaced which much longer sentences that describe the action. I realize the Chee in this novel has removed himself in a way from becoming a singer for his people, but I wouldn't think that he would completely give up on his spirituality. It seems the Chee here is more self-conscious, more aware of when he makes himself look like an idiot, which is often, and even though sometimes Chee berated himself for his stupidity in the other novels it wasn't a constant thing. Something else that has been removed is the in-depth look at Navajo practices and customs. I recall in one of his past novels the issue of Navajo clans became an important detail in the unravelling of the mystery. Although myths play a role here, they seem almost secondary, or kind of a "going through the motions" thing. In past novels if a myth or idea was important, it was treated with more weight, and often in his novels he would bring up more than one idea or myth. Here the only myth that is brought up concerns the "Badger" title character. The use of Navajo/Hopi culture here isn't as fleshed out as it had been in the past. I always enjoyed the descriptions of the ceremonies, or the songs sung by characters in the novels that were a part of their rituals. Here they are non-existant. Considering the fact that Hosteen Nakai dies in this novel, I would have expected more of a reaction from Chee. This was his teacher, and his passing seems almost trivial. I would have thought that Chee would have had more of a sense of loss at his uncle's death, but it wasn't to be found here. This novel also seems to put Leaphorn to the forefront, instead of it being a novel between Chee and Leaphorn, with them sharing the limelight equally. I never had a problem in the past with Leaphorn being in the books, but here it almost seems like Leaphorn has taken over the book and Chee is just an ineffectual background character. It's Leaphorn that seems to have found all the pieces to the puzzles and solved most of the mystery by the book's end, and Leaphorn giving the orders to the FBI, while Chee gets to make himself look like an idiot, gets himself injured--twice--and gets prodded with a lot of questions from Leaphorn and others. It seemed to me that Chee was there because he was the official police officer--Leaphorn being retired means that he doesn't have the authority to do a number of things, like make arrests. I did not really understand why the change took place. It has always seemed to me that Leaphorn and Chee were equally smart, with Leaphorn only having the advantage because he was older, slightly more attentive to detail, and a bit wiser in the ways of the criminal mind. I didn't find Bernie (I think that's her name) all that interesting. You could tell she's going to be set up as Chee's girlfriend sometime in his next few novels. It seems to me that more characterization needs to be done on her before she becomes interesting. She does seem to have some insight, but since very little of the book was devoted to her characterization it's hard to say whether or not she would be interesting enough to keep around for the next few novels. In all, though, I've read worse books. I don't know of any artist or writer that doesn't have a book or painting that "could have been better". My feeling is that writers like Hillerman are entitled to them every now and then. Since they're human, they can't be perfect all the time, and it's times like these that an artist or writer can learn from their not-quite-there work in order to understand how to make it better. It's part of the learning experience, and most artists I know say that they never stop learning, even when they're no longer in school. It's still an enjoyable read, and the plot was interesting even if it wasn't as complicated as previous Hillerman novels. I may not read this a second time, but it was worth it the first time. I'm still looking forward to his next novel.
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