The Dark Wind

The Dark Wind is the fifth crime fiction novel in the Joe Leaphorn / Jim Chee Navajo Tribal Police series by Tony Hillerman, published in 1982. It is the second of the novels to feature Officer Jim Chee. Now working from Tuba City, Sgt. Chee is assigned four cases by Capt. Largo. A drug-smuggling plane crashes, and Largo insists Chee stay away from that case, a tough challenge as he gathers information from Hopis, whites and Navajos to solve the original cases. Reviewers found this to have a "classic Hillerman plot", involving a plane crash, possibly illegal drugs, and a vandalized windmill on the Joint-Use lands. It is "relentlessly introspective" and "with Hillerman's moodily fine prose in full Southwest regalia", as the Hopi and the Navajo ways are contrasted, and Chee explores a white man's motivation, of revenge.