The Dark Wind is a novel written by Tony Hillerman. The plot opens when a small airplane crashes in central Arizona. The airplane was carrying illegal drugs being smuggled into the United States. Jim Chee and his friend Lt. Joe Leaphorn are Navajo tribal policeman, and were staked out at a vandalized windmill near the crash site. Besides investigating missing cocaine for the Federal Government, they also was assigned the case of a mysterious mutilated corpse of a Navajo Indian that was found in the desert.
Jim Chee, a graduate of the University of New Mexico, has an ongoing issue with the two worlds he lives in. American stereotypes and bureaucracies and the Navajo culture he grew up in constantly conflict for him. But it takes his native culture to put all the evidence he has to gravel with together. His case involves the vandalized windmill, the dead corpse that had been scalped and its hands and feet mutilated, the airplane crash, the missing cocaine, and some pawned silver taken from the Burnt Water Trading Post.
The four cases eventually come together, as Chee finds they are all connected. The usual investigative methods were used, making the conclusion easy for Chee and Leaphorn and brilliant. Hillerman was brilliant too when he brought to life the four corners of the southwest. He described how ruggedly beautiful the terrain is and how desolate. He also described the social and religion habits of the Navajo and Hopi Indians and how they lived on their reservations.
