For tribes of the American Southwest, the annual Sun Dance is among the most solemn and sacred of rituals. But lately Death has been an uninvited guest at the hallowed rite. Ute tribal policeman Charlie Moon is puzzled. The deceased Sun Dancers sustained no visible, life-ending injuries, so he is reluctant to call it murder -- though there is surely nothing "natural" about the sudden, inexplicable deaths of two strong and healthy men. Unlike her skeptical...

A lawman with a hardy appetite for life and an unshakable faith in the explicable, Southern Ute Acting Chief of Police Charlie Moon is not prepared to accept a purely supernatural explanation for the recent strange events of April 1. Nevertheless, something carried off Tommy Tonompicket and his unlikely drinking companion, research scientist William Pizinski, in the black chill of the Colorado night. And something ripped the head off a man outside

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"When a fomer prosecuting attorney is killed by a shot from a long-range rifle while dining late one evening at an exclusive Granite Creek, Colorado, restaurant, it seems obvious that a vengeful criminal is to blame. But orthodontist Manfred Blinkoe was sitting ten feet away and he insists to Chief of Police Scott Parris that he was the intended victim. In fact, he claims that just before the shot was fired, he saw his doppelganger - an eerie look-alike...

Strange things are happening near Granite Creek, Colorado, all in the space of less than twenty-four hours. A Ute shaman dreams of being buried alive and hears the hooting of an owl, signaling impending death. A man walks into Spirit Canyon and disappears, leaving his battered wife both relieved and devastated. A private museum is burgled. An Apache is arrested for assaulting a police officer. And a sniper takes a shot through an antique store window,...

Ute rancher and part-time tribal investigator Charlie Moon's plans for marital bliss with FBI Special Agent Lila Mae McTeague are put on hold thanks to Charlie's cantankerous aunt, her sixteen-year-old niece, and their visions of a brutally murdered woman.

After a college student is killed, Police Chief Scott Parris turns to an aging shaman, who had visions of the killing, to track down the person responsible before they can kill again. "The shocking death of a female physics student has shattered the peaceful community of Granite Creek, Colorado--and police chief Scott Parrish has a hunch he can't even begin to explain. He saw the killing ... in his dreams. Daisy Perika experienced the same visions....

Charlie Moon is treading on sacred ground...and he may live to regret it. The two sandstone monoliths -- a pair of massive natural giants towering over the southern Colorado landscape -- that stand before the hulking, good-natured former policeman turned rancher are wrapped in rich tribal lore and dark, ancient mystery. To the local Navajo, Pueblo, and Ute, they are the Twin War Gods, sons of the moon goddess White Shell Woman. Legends tell of strange...

dash of humor and a sprinkling of romance season Doss's eighth Charlie Moon mystery (after 2002's White Shell Woman). The part-time Ute tribal investigator and full-time rancher looks into the death of fellow tribesman Billy Smoke, murdered during an assault that left Billy's high-profile employer, Senator Patch Davidson, permanently crippled. An explosion at a new airport adds to the body count. Meanwhile, Charlie's acid-tongued Aunt Daisy, a shaman...

Even with some of the toughest hombres and nastiest outlaws roaming the Southwest, sometime tribal investigator Charlie Moon does a fair job on the side of the good guys. So it's no surprise that he gets the call when the widow Loyola Montoya starts making a fuss about witches. She swears there's a whole midnight brood lurking in the woods just off her property, mocking her with lewd songs and harassing her with the carcasses of dead animals. When...