Like many of his stories, Tony Hillerman's The First Eagle takes place on the Navajo Reservation in the American Southwest. It once again stars Officer Jim Chee and retired Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn of the Navajo Tribal Police, who appear in many of Hillerman's books.
Chee finds the body of a murdered police officer with Robert Jano, a Hopi eagle poacher, standing over the body. To Chee it looked like a clear cut case, but he was soon proved wrong. Chee is sure the Hopi had committed the murder. He had been called by the young murdered officer to assist on another incident. When Chee arrives it is that young officer, Ben Kinsman, he finds dead.
At the same time, Leaphorn, working as a part time private investigator, was searching the area for a missing woman. He had been hired by the young lady's aunt to find her. She was a scientist looking for the key to a plague. She had gone missing the same day Officer Kinsman had been murdered. Soon Chee and Leaphorn join forces and through separate leads, create a mysterious situation that keeps the reader guessing as to who committed this crime and how.
The book deals with the romantic interests of the two men, and the tension between them as Navajos who have differing views about their people. Chee is a traditionalist who believes in the culture and customs of the tribe, while Leaphorn is more detached and less interested in them.
