The morning after the aged Ute shaman receives a perplexing visits from a silent, disheveled matukach "magician," daisy's neighbor Nathan McFain discovers something astonishing buried in the dirt on his foundering Colorado dude ranch: the bones of gargantuan beast from a prehistoric age. It is a find of enormous scientific importance that attracts the attention of a wide variety of individual: noted paleontologist Moses Silver and his archaeologist daughter Delia; pillars of the scientific community Robert Newton and Cordell York; an Arkansas sharpie named Flye, an overly interested local antiques dealer.. and Charlie Moon of the Southern Ute Police Department. At the McFain spread primarily to keep an eye on the disreputable Flye, Moon is curious about the strange old bones ....and wary as well. For things this ancient and rare have been known to inspire evil deeds in the past, including avarice, mendacity, and murder. And when one of the prime players in this timeless drama vanishes without a trace, Charlie worries that his greatest fears have been realized. But while Charlie investigates the unexplained disappearance --and a very suspicious death that follows soon after--using rational and accepted police methods, his aunt Daisy is being drawn by forces preternatural into a grimly related mystery. For craven murder is not the exclusive domain of contemporary Man--and a cry for justice from the past has reached Daisy Perika and tow extraordinary young girls in her care, ensnaring them all in something old, dark, and dangerous. Ute lawman Charlie Moon and shaman Daisy Perika return in another satisfying blend of modern murder and ancient beliefs, set on the Southern Ute Reservation in Colorado. Charlie investigates a murder associated with a paleontological dig, while Daisy senses a much older injustice. An excellent addition to the series. Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. Despite autumn's reputation as a quiet time, police sergeant Charlie Moon finds his Ute Indian reservation bustling with mystery and crime. First an apparition haunts Charlie's aunt Daisy Perika, an elderly Ute shaman. Then a bar fight and a discovery unearthed by a whirlwind unleash a wave of greed and murder. This fifth Shaman mystery has full-bodied characters, vivid descriptions of southern Colorado, thought-provoking insights about modern and ancient life in the American West, and a quirky, effective mix of humor and melancholy. As in the earlier installments of this series--including The Shaman's Bones (1997)--the supernatural elements of the story play a more significant role than they do in the work of either Tony Hillerman or Margaret Coel (see starred review, p.2033), both of whom also set their series on Native American reservations. Still, fans of either of those series will want to read Doss, too. John Rowen Another visit to the Colorado territory of Ute Indian policeman Charlie Moon, his white friend Scott Parris, chief of police at nearby Granite Creek, and Charlie's aged Aunt Daisy, a shaman afflicted by visions and prophecies, presently sharing her trailer home with eight-year-old orphan Sarah Frank (The Shaman's Game, 1998, etc.). The whole area is talking about the mammoth skeleton found on Nathan McFain's dude ranch, now being examined, under a huge tent, by world-famed experts in the fields of paleontology and archaeology, headed by Professor Moses Silver and his daughter Dr. Delia Silverand being heralded by no less than the cover of' Time magazine. The diggers are deaf Jimson Beugmann and Horace Flye, a newcomer from Arkansas who shares his beat-up trailer with his six-year-old daughter Butter. An important second find at the site is a flint blade that eventually brings Charlie and Scott into a complex plot involving a wealthy collector, tons of' money, and local antiques dealer Ralph Briggs. More importantly, it leads to the deaths of McBain and Flye, leaving Butter in Aunt Daisy's care and Charlie to figure out the whole unlikely series of' events. The patient reader with a taste for Indian lore will be intrigued. Others may be put off by the endless turns of plot and the too-frequent, determinedly poetic explorations of myths and mesas. A hard-working combination of fantasy and practicality, then, but not for everyone. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. The morning after the aged Ute shaman receives a perplexing visits from a silent, disheveled matukach "magician," daisy's neighbor Nathan McFain discovers something astonishing buried in the dirt on his foundering Colorado dude ranch: the bones of gargantuan beast from a prehistoric age. It is a find of enormous scientific importance that attracts the attention of a wide variety of individual: noted paleontologist Moses Silver and his archaeologist daughter Delia; pillars of the scientific community Robert Newton and Cordell York; an Arkansas sharpie named Flye, an overly interested local antiques dealer.. and Charl