As Chief of Police for Granite Creek, Colorado, Scott Parris has learned that the solutions to heinous human crimes sometimes lie outside the realm of cold, rational science. In the past, this knowledge has compelled him to join forces with Charlie Moon, a Ute tribal policeman who understands both the modern world and the mystical. And now Parris's instincts tell him to heed the grim predictions of Charlie's shaman aunt--the irascible and disturbingly prescient Daisy Perika--who speaks of visions of raining blood and death. "Some will die," she tells the matukach lawman. "Some who are of the People, and some who are not. They will not die easy." The first to die badly is a woman of the Tohono O'otam tribe, whose body hangs cold and lifeless from a Wyoming tree. It is a savage and senseless crime outside Scott Parris's jurisdiction--until a brutal, unwarranted assault on a Granite Creek policewoman by the suspected killer pulls Parris and Moon into the hunt. A little girl may hold the key to this inexplicable rash of violence--an abandoned child who has been placed in the care of Daisy Perika. And despite Charlie Moon's calm assurances to the contrary, Scott Parris fears they have all found their way into Death's exclusive domain. For evil is at work in weak hearts, and innocence is now in dire jeopardy. Daisy Perika's warning rings in Parris's ears: many more will surely die, unless two dedicated police officers can uncover the dark secrets buried in a not-too-distant past--secrets of betrayal, of treacherous tribal politics, and of a stolen Power that has made some men greedy and hungry...and deadly. For mystery buffs who like a little magic mixed into their mayhem, James D. Doss serves up the third in his series of regional mysteries set on Native American reservations. In The Shaman's Bones, Doss's hero, tribal policeman Charlie Moon, and a Shoshone shaman named Blue Cup are both on the trail of a murderer, but their methodology is vastly different. While Charlie employs the usual police procedures to solve the crime, Blue Cup sends his spirit after the killer. What happens next makes for a spooky, gripping read. Even though Ute police officer Charlie Moon's elderly aunt, a well-known visionary and shaman, warns him of impending violence on the Colorado reservation, he is ill prepared for what happens. Events begin with an Indian's bad check but escalate to child abandonment, a vicious attack on a female police trainee, murder, and the theft of another shaman's sacred objects. Doss uses setting and atmosphere to heighten the mystical aspects of his subject and astute characterization to enforce its credibility. A successful, sophisticated, and vibrant third from the author of The Shaman Laughs (St. Martin's, 1995) and The Shaman Sings (LJ 5/1/95). Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. Daisy Perika, a Ute shaman in Colorado, has a dream full of "dreadful apparitions," which soon materialize as murder, drug dealing, and the theft of a sacred object--crimes that local police chief Scott Parris and his colleague Charlie Moon, a Ute himself, solve with an intriguing mix of mysticism and police procedure. The writing in this third book in Doss' shaman series is eloquent, almost poetic, with lean and often dryly humorous dialogue. Doss vividly describes an overlooked corner of the West, a rigorous yet beautiful place with stunning mountains and canyons. This book feels more mystical and spiritual than the work of either Tony Hillerman or Margaret Coel, whose novels are set in similar settings; yet Doss' strong plotting skills keep the book solidly grounded in the mystery genre. The story drags a bit toward the end, but the reader is rewarded by an unexpected finale that will remind readers of Arthur Conan Doyle's wonderful story, "Silver Blaze." John Rowen Third in a much praised series (The Shaman Laughs, 1995, etc.), set in the canyons, mesas, small towns, and tribal reservations of the Southwest. Daisy Perika, an aged shaman and aunt of Ute Reservation policeman Charlie Moon, has had a vision of evil to come--and it's not long before Charlie and Scott Parris, chief of Colorado's Granite Creek police, have teamed up again to solve the grisly murder of Mary Frank, her body found near the City Limits Motel in Wyoming. Mary's husband Provo is the obvious suspect, having driven away from the motel with Sarah, their five- year-old daughter and then soon after leaving the girl with Moon's Aunt Daisy, also related to Provo. It later develops that Provo had stolen an object of great value from Blue Cup, another elderly shaman--a recluse now seeking to recover his lost treasure, aided by deaf acolyte Noah Dancing Crow. The body count begins to climb with the death of Wyoming patrolman Harry MacFie, and complications escalate with an investigation into the Pynk Garter Saloon, next to the motel, and its proprietor Lizzie Pynk. There will be more deaths before the not-so-long-ago roots of the mayhem are rev