Wailing Wind

To Officer Bernadette Manuelito, the man curled up on the truck seat was just another drunkwhich got Bernie in trouble for mishandling a crime scenewhich got Sergeant Jim Chee in trouble with the FBIwhich drew Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn out of retirement and back into the old "Golden Calf" homicide, a case he had hoped to forget.Nothing had seemed complicated about that earlier one. A con game had gone sour. A swindler had tried to sell wealthy old Wiley Denton the location of one of the West's multitude of legendary lost gold mines. Denton had shot the swindler, called the police, confessed the homicide, and done his short prison time. No mystery there.Except why did the rich man's bride vanish? The cynics said she was part of the swindle plot. She'd fled when it failed. But, alas, old Joe Leaphorn was a romantic. He believed in love, and thus the Golden Calf case still troubled him. Now, papers found in this new homicide case connect the victim to Denton and to the mythical Golden Calf Mine. The first Golden Calf victim had been there just hours before Denton killed him. And while Denton was killing him, four children trespassing among the rows of empty bunkers in the long-abandoned Wingate Ordnance Depot called in an odd report to the police. They had heard, in the wind wailing around the old buildings, what sounded like music and the cries of a woman.Bernie Manuelito uses her knowledge of Navajo country, its tribal traditions, and her friendship with a famous old medicine man to unravel the first knot of this puzzle, with Jim Chee putting aside his distaste of the FBI to help her. But the questions raised by this second Golden Calf murder aren't answered until Leaphorn solves the puzzle left by the first one and discovers what the young trespassers heard in the wailing wind.

Auteur

TONY HILLERMAN served as president of the Mystery Writers of America and received the Edgar and Grand Master Awards. His other honors include the Center for the American Indian's Ambassador Award, the Spur Award for Best Western Novel, and the Navajo Tribal Council Special Friend of the Dineh Award. A native of Oklahoma, Tony Hillerman lived in Albuquerque, New Mexico, until his death in 2008.

Texte du rabat

Legendary detectives Leaphorn and Chee are pulled into mysteries old and new in this haunting tale of obsessive greed, lost love, and murder from the "national literary and cultural sensation” (Los Angeles Times)—New York Times bestselling author Tony Hillerman.

"Tony Hillerman's novels are like no others. His insightful portrayal of the vast Navajo Reservation, the spirit-haunted people who inhabit it and the clash between ancient traditions and modern civilization that has shaped its present and will determine its future has produced a body of work unique in mystery fiction.”—San Diego Union-Tribune To Officer Bernie Manuelito the man curled on the truck seat was just another drunk-which got Bernie in trouble for mishandling a murder scene-which got Sgt. Jim Chee in trouble with the FBI-which drew ex-Lieutenent Joe Leaphorn out of retirement into an old crime he longed to forget. Legends of the area's lost gold mines join the mountains and canyons of the Navajo Reservation as elements of Hillerman's plot, but this tale turns on an obsessive love and memories of a missing woman's voice wailing in the darkness.