Works by
James D. Doss
(aka James Daniel Doss)
(Writer)
[1941 - ]

Charlie Moon Shaman Mystery Series

1. The Shaman Sings (1994)
   Daisy Perika has no place in the modern world of cold, rational science. Hers is the realm of the spirit -- of ancient and sacred magic. But visions of Coyote and fire have awakened the aged Ute shaman once again to the Dark One's workings among the whites of southwestern Colorado.
   
   For Granite Creek police chief Scott Parris, the late-night murder of a brilliant female graduate student is a brutal and baffling as anything he encountered during his years as a Chicago cop. Now the investigation is leading Parris into worlds he has never known -- and toward a remarkable alliance with a beautiful journalist and an elderly Native American mystic that could prove both enlightening...and deadly.

2. The Shaman Laughs (1995)
   On Native-American land, in a lonely, mystical place called the Canyon of the Spirit, prize livestock is being slaughtered as part of some strange and secret rite. Darkness is stalking the reservation, and Ute tribal policeman Charlie Moon fears for his world and his people.
   
   Because now the ritual is spilling human blood.
   
   A terrifying rash of sacrificial murders has left Moon shaken, yet determined to find answers. The bizarre killings have shattered Anglo policeman Scott Parris's belief in a rational, explainable world. But it Daisy Perika, an aging Ute shaman, who holds the key. For only she who communes with the ancient spirits can truly comprehend the evil that has descended upon southwestern Colorado--an evil that is hungry. . . and all too real.

3. The Shaman's Bones (1997)
   A women of the Tohono O'otam tribe has been savagely -- and ritually -- murdered in Wyoming, outside the jurisdictions of Granite Creek, Colorado, Police Chief Scott Parris and Ute tribal policeman Charlie Moon. But a brutal, unprovoked assault by the suspected killer on one of Parris's detectives -- and the dark, unsettling visions of Charlie's shaman aunt, Daisy Perika -- are pulling two dedicated lawmen and an aging Native American mystic into the hunt.
   
   Daisy's dreams of raining blood tell her that more will die. Despite the healthy skepticism of his good friend Moon, Parris is inclined to heed the shaman's dire warnings. But the trail of a murderer is leading them all to perilous and unexpected places, where secrets of past betrayals and treacherous tribal politics are buried, and where the pursuit of a stolen Power has turned some men greedy and hungry. . .and deadly.

4. The Shaman's Game (1998)
   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 nephew, however, Charlie's aunt, shaman Daisy Perika, trusts the signs the spirits have sent her of a great evil in their midst. And Moon's matukach friend, Police Chief Scott Parris, believes the stubborn, good-natured Ute lawman should look beyond the rational for answers. Yet Charlie Moon knows too well that hatred, bitterness, and delusion are often behind lethal acts -- and he hopes these very human failings will reveal to him a killer. But now a beautiful childhood friend has stepped into harm's way and time is running out. For death is on the prowl once more -- and it will surely darken the Sun Dance again.

5. The Night Visitor (1999)
   The world of Daisy Perika ia a realm of shadows, omens, and restless spirits. In tribal policeman Charlie Moon's world, good and evil manifest themselves in more explainable, human ways. Yet the irascible old Ute shaman and her huge, good-natured nephew inhabit the same hard and lonely Colorado country. And now the parched earth has yielded up the remains of a gargantuan prehistoric beast on the site of a failed dude ranch--a find of enormous scientific importance that is attracting the attention of a wide variety of inividuals, some eminent and seemingly scrupulous...other obviously neither. Moon is also curious about the strange old bones. For things this ancient and rare have been known to inspire malevolent deeds in the past, including avarice, lies...and murder. And all it takes is one mysterious disappearance and one very suspicious death to convince Charlie Moon that his greatest fears have just been realized.

6. Grandmother Spider (2001)
   The incomparable mysteries of James D. Doss, featuring the amiable, outsized Ute tribal policeman Charlie Moon and his irascible shaman aunt Daisy Perika, are brilliantly conceived, richly atmospheric puzzles generously sprinkled with humor and Native American mysticism, and teeming with characters as colorful and memorable as any found in contemporary fiction. The enchantment is more potent than ever before in this spellbinding tale of lethal human depravity and a legendary nightmare come alive.
   
   A lawman with a hardy appetite for life and an unshakable faith in the explicable and rational, Charlie Moon has never taken his grumpy aunt Daisy's visions and premonitions seriously. He is especially skeptical of the old woman's stories about "Grandmother Spider," a gargantuan avenging arachnid that allegedly rises up out of Navajo Lake in search of human prey. But on April first, in the still, utter darkness of the Colorado night, Daisy and her young ward, Sarah, see something striding across the Canon del Espiritu. And something carries off Tommy Tonompicket and his unlikely drinking companion, research scientist William Pizinski, that same night, after ripping the hood off of Tommy's truck. And then there's the mangled, headless corpse lying outside a cabin in the mountains, with two large, fanglike punctures in its chest ...
   
   Charlie is not prepared to accept a purely supernatural explanation for the recent occurrences.
   
   This is murder, in Moon's opinion, pure if not simple -- and by human hands, most probably.
   
   Even Charlie's friend, matukach Police Chief Scott Parris-who is more willing than most white men to see the things that hover beyond the edge of this world -- does not yet subscribe to the "mythical monster on the loose" theory that the evidence seems to overwhelmingly suggest. For there are just too many loose threads in this twisted web of blood and secrets, too many lies being spun and sticky pasts being protected -- and soon another death all of which strongly suggest that the dreaded Kagu-ci Mukwa-pi does not, in fact, exist.
   
   But then again ... The most audaciously original and continually surprising of his critically acclaimed novels, Grandmother Spider confirms James D. Doss as a true master of the mystical, the hilarious, and the mysterious.

7. White Shell Woman (2002)
   The two sandstone monoliths towering over the southern Colorado landscape are wrapped in ancient mystery. To the local tribes, they are the Twin War Gods, sons of the moon goddess, White Shell Woman. Legends tell of strange happenings in their shadows, of lost treasure and Anasazi blood sacrifice. But it is a much more recent history that troubles former Ute policeman-turned-rancher Charlie Moon, specifically the fresh corpse of a young Native American woman unearthed at an archaeological dig.

8. Dead Soul (2003)
   Where Colorado's border pushes against New Mexico, autumn is short. Rancher and tribal investigator Charlie Moon has fat cattle and a prowling cougar that demand his attention. He doesn't have the time to investigate the assault that killed hard-drinking limo driver, Billy Smoke, and put his boss, a U.S. Senator, in a wheelchair. But Moon has an obligation to the People, the Southern Utes, to look into the murder of one of their own. The FBI couldn't solve the case. Now Moon can walk the same paths and get to the same place. Or he can listen to his acid-tongued Aunt Daisy, a tribal shaman as well as a thorn in Moon's side. She insists a distraught red-haired girl is looking for Charlie. It may be about Billy Smoke's murder. Or-since this involves Aunt Daisy-the girl may be looking for a justice of her own.

9. The Witch's Tongue (2004)
   In James D. Doss's latest 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 unusual day-share the limelight with the vibrant details of Native life and custom.BIZARRE OCCURRENCES CAN HAPPEN 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.IN THE COURSE OF A DAYPart-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.

10. Shadow Man (2005)
    James D. Doss’s latest engrossing mystery marks the return of Charlie Moon, tribal investigator on Colorado’s Ute reservation, whose sleuthing skills get some unlikely help from his Aunt Daisy Perika’s shamanistic intuition.
    
    TROUBLE SPREADS ITS WINGS Dr. Manfred Blinkoe is one orthodontist with a very checkered past. So when a fellow diner at Cedar Creek’s poshest restaurant drops dead from an unseen assailant’s bullet, he can’t help thinking that he was the intended target. Desperate for help, he turns to the one local who’s up to the job: renowned tribal investigator Charlie Moon.
    
    AND A KILLER COMES TO ROOST Charlie already has his hands full with two cattle ranches to run, ornery Aunt Daisy’s wanderings in the spirit world, and his sparring matches with the alluring FBI agent Lila Mae McTeague. Now he’s got an eccentric client with more money than sense and too many enemies—at least one of whom is willing to resort to explosive measures to settle an old score.

11. Stone Butterfly (2006)
    Ute shaman Daisy Perika is no stranger to eerie dreams, but when she has a nightmare, lives could be at stake. Convinced that her visions of a wisp-thin girl with blood dripping from her hands are omens, the old woman calls on her nephew, Charlie Moon. Moon, a part-time tribal investigator and full-time Colorado rancher, is skeptical, but he knows better than to dismiss his quarrelsome aunt too quickly. After all, she has been right before. But what can he do? Although Daisy can see what’s left of a dying man’s face, she can’t get a clear look at the girl’s. Without that, Moon doesn’t have anything to go on.
    
    Then he gets a call about a very real murder. Sarah Frank, an Ute-Papago orphan and daughter of Moon’s childhood friend, was spotted standing over the battered body with blood on her hands. Moon and FBI Special Agent Lila Mae McTeague cross the border to investigate, but they’re too late. Not only has little Sarah vanished with a one-of-a-kind family heirloom, but Moon and McTeague aren’t the only ones on her trail.
    
    Off the reservation and across states lines, James D. Doss’s clever mystery finds Moon on the law enforcement side of the investigation and his aunt Daisy decidedly on the other.