Tony Hillerman displaces a perfect balance of action and description in his excellent book Hunting badger. This book is about main characters Navajo tribal police officer Jim Chee and his once superior retired police chief Joe Leaphorn. The plot is relatively straight …more forward when you look back on the book, but it also manages to be very complex. The book begins with Jim Chee who has recently come back from Alaska and is beginning to settle in his home and as a police officer. Meanwhile Joe Leaphorn is living in the past thinking about his wife who past away and of old cases. One of these cases that is still fresh in the minds of just about all law enforcement agencies is a man hunt in which the FBI even with a full force of agents assisted by Navajo and Apache tribal officers, the Border Patrol, four kinds of state police officers, county sheriffs, and twenty other kinds of law enforcement officers, they could still not catch the man who had killed a police officer and stolen many vehicles. This relates to a major theme in Hunting Badger which is the inadequacy of modern technology and urban law enforcement in the face of Western geography and Western social realities. The most impressive thing that Tony Hillerman does in the writing of this book and his many others is the way he can capture the feel and essence of Native American culture. He does this subtly, but it is contestant throughout his books. This is something that is hard to explain and can only truly be understood through the reading of this book. In Hunting Badger Tony Hillerman paints a perfect picture of the beautiful Southwest United States, informs on Navajo culture and builds up to a astonishing climax that keeps you on the edge of your seat. This book is a must read for all readers out there. (less)