Cyndi J. (cyndij) reviewed on 2/24/2011 + 1031 more book reviews

Because of the Southwestern setting and the Native American characters, the temptation is to compare this book with Tony Hillerman; but the tone here is considerably more lightweight than a Hillerman novel. A graduate student in physics has discovered something extremely valuable in her off-hours work - something that gets her killed. Daisy Perika, a local Ute woman (must be the shaman of the title), has had some visions that will help the police. This book says it is a Charlie Moon mystery, although we only see Charlie in a couple brief appearances; I don't know why it isn't a Daisy Perika mystery or a Scott Parrish (he's a chief of police) mystery, since we spend much of the story with him. Anyway it's a nice enough mystery with a lot of shifting to various POVs - the shaman, the murderer, another criminal, a reporter and so forth. Short scenes and fairly snappy dialogue, the characters are mostly well realized with a couple of stereotyped exceptions, and a decent sense of place. A bit of woo-woo, a bit of humor, and some gratuitous killing all in one package. If you are a fan of the southwest or Native Americans in mysteries you might want to take
a look. If you like it, there are plenty more in the series.

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