The Witch's Tongue: A Charlie Moon Mystery

Book excerpt: 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, wounding the proprietor. Part-time Ute tribal investigator Charlie Moon would rather be tending to his duties on the Columbine Ranch than playing detective with this puzzling collection of seemingly unrelated events. But when the local police and the FBI-including the beguiling Special Agent Lila McTeague-can't seem to put it all together, Charlie must connect the dots before anyone else dies. In The Witch's Tongue, James D. Doss's complex and absorbing crime novel set on the Ute reservation in Southern Colorado, Charlie Moon's cleverness and his aunt Daisy Perika's intuition-not to mention the spellbinding story behind this hell of a day-share the limelight with the vibrant details of Native life and custom.