The 11th loopy adventure for Charlie Moon, rancher, Ute tribal investigator and beleaguered nephew.
Once again, that irascible Ute crone Aunt Daisy is bedeviled by a nightmare. A young girl whose face she can’t see is dripping blood onto a corpse. What does the dream mean? Charlie Moon, Daisy’s seven-foot nephew (Shadow Man, 2005, etc.), sidesteps the issue until further dreams reveal the face of half-Ute Sarah Frank, 14, daughter of one of Charlie’s dead pals. What has Sarah gotten herself into over in Utah, where she’s living mostly destitute with a distant relative? Alas, involvement in the murder of crotchety old Ben Silver, who fought all his life with his half-brother Ray and refused to give up a thingamajig left him by their long-dead mother. Now the thingamajig’s missing, Ben’s dead and the race is on to find Sarah, last observed swinging a baseball bat over Ben. She’s probably headed for sanctuary at Aunt Daisy’s place on the Colorado reservation. Will she get there before Sheriff Popper’s on-the-take deputies find her? Before Ray’s henchmen get to her? Before coyotes accost her in Spirit Canyon? Naturally—maybe supernaturally—Aunt Daisy plans to help her out while giving Charlie a mischievous shove in the romance department.
Bidding farewell to FBI Special Agent Lila Mae McTeague, Doss ushers in the era of Sarah and the last days of Charlie’s bachelorhood. Droll, crafty, upper-echelon reading.
