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.

When Colorado rancher and part-time tribal investigator Charlie Moon gets a call from Wanda Naranjo, she's panicked. Not only is her sink leaking, which Moon graciously fixes, but her sixteen-year-old daughter, Betty, has gone missing. For how long? Only a few hours, but she's pregnant. So what about the father-to-be? It's a good question and anybody's guess. Betty has kept her lips sealed on the subject.And that's not all. Betty claimed to be going to see a school counselor on what turned out to be his day off. So was she running away or was she abducted? Moon's best friend, Granite Creek Chief of Police Scott Parris, doesn't believe any of it and suspects that Wanda tricked them into doing a little emergency plumbing. While it's enough to make Parris's blood boil, Moon can't shake the feeling that some other foul play might be at work.James D. Doss's Coffin Man is a witty ride through the Wild West that's chock-full of tall tales, wide-open spaces,...

Colorado rancher and tribal investigator Charlie Moon is taking a night off to play some poker with his best friend, Scott Parris, Granite Creek's chief of police, when Scott's dispatcher cuts in with an emergency call. It seems a man was on the phone with his wife when their call was interrupted by a bloodcurdling scream and the most gruesome noises he'd ever heard. Would they mind checking it out? Arriving on scene, they discover that the man's wife, one of three daughters of a wealthy and powerful rancher, has been mauled beyond recognition. Even after her two sisters—-one of whom is a popular TV psychic who on that very night's show reported "seeing" the real-time murder of one of her fans—-turn up at the DA's office, demanding answers, the smart money and forensic experts are still laying blame on a hungry bear. But once the wheels of justice are turning and the ratings for Cassandra Sees are going through the roof,...

Colorado rancher and investigator Charlie Moon accidentally kills a purse snatcher with ties to the mob in Doss's latest gemFormer police officer, sometime tribal investigator, and current rancher Charlie Moon and Chief of Police Scott Parris didn't mean for things to get out of hand, but the purse-snatching LeRoy Hooten left them with little choice when he made a run for it. When Hooten dies due to his injuries, as bad as they feel about it, there is little that they can do. However, the dead man's mother—a widow to a brutal mobster—wastes no time making a call to an old associate to settle the score.With an assassin on his way, the FBI close behind, and a new P.I. bringing up the rear, Moon and Parris will need to watch their backs in Doss's raucous addition to his wild and witty western mystery series.

Charlie Moon, Ute rancher and investigator, isn't afraid to throw the dice even when a man's life is at stake, but when that man is betting against himself and Moon's ability to save him, that makes for some awfully high stakes.Hard times have come to Colorado, and Moon's ranch is feeling the pinch. Investor Samuel Reed has never had that problem. He seems to have a special intuition when it comes to picking stocks and claims to be able to remember the future, which gives him quite a leg up on Wall Street. So it's no surprise that Reed is confident when he makes a wager with Moon's best friend, Granite City Chief of Police Scott Parish, that Parish can't keep him alive. Even when Reed doesn't give them any details beyond the date and time of his impending demise, that's more than enough information for Moon who wants in on the action and is just as confident that he's well on the way to saving his ranch. But Moon's best plans go awry when instead of one...

When a local prosecuting attorney is killed by long-range rifle while dining at an exclusive Granite Creek, Colorado, restaurant, it seems obvious that a vengeful criminal is to blame. But orthodontist Manfred Blinkoe was sitting ten feet away and he insists that he was the intended victim. In fact, he claims that just before the shot was fired, he saw his doppelganger--an eerie lookalike--as he has in the past just before a near-death experience. Terrified, Blinkoe hires Charlie Moon to find the lookalike, but before Charlie can get anywhere, Blinkoe is murdered for real. As usual in Doss's clever, intricately drawn mysteries, the cagey Charlie Moon and his Ute shaman Aunt Daisy share the spotlight.

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 James D. Doss's latest complex and absorbing crime novel set on the Ute reservation in Southern Colorado, Charlie...

Even with some of the toughest hombres and nastiest outlaws roaming the Southwest, bestselling author James D. Doss's seven-foot-tall rancher and sometime tribal investigator Charlie Moon does a fair job on the side of the good guys. So it's no surprise that he gets the call when the widow Loyola Montoya starts making a fuss about witches.Witches?She swears there's a whole midnight brood lurking in the woods just off her property, mocking her with lewd songs and harassing her with the carcasses of dead animals. When no one takes her seriously--she has been known to cry wolf from time to time--she takes matters into her own hands, with disastrous results. By the time Charlie arrives, it's too late to save her, and while he knows he can't bring her back, that doesn't mean he can't help the widow get her revenge after all.Told in Doss's whimsical style, The Widow's Revenge is a wonderfully tall tale that requires wide-open spaces and...

The morning after the aged Ute shaman receives a perplexing visits from a silent, disheveled matukach "magician," daisy's neighbor Nathan McFain discovers something astonishing buried in the dirt on his foundering Colorado dude ranch: the bones of gargantuan beast from a prehistoric age. It is a find of enormous scientific importance that attracts the attention of a wide variety of individual: noted paleontologist Moses Silver and his archaeologist daughter Delia; pillars of the scientific community Robert Newton and Cordell York; an Arkansas sharpie named Flye, an overly interested local antiques dealer.. and Charlie Moon of the Southern Ute Police Department. At the McFain spread primarily to keep an eye on the disreputable Flye, Moon is curious about the strange old bones ....and wary as well. For things this ancient and rare have been known to inspire evil deeds in the past, including avarice, mendacity, and murder. And when one of the prime players in this timeless drama...

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...

With his Southwestern series, bestselling author James D. Doss and his dryly humorous, no-nonsense Native American sleuth, Charlie Moon, have brought law and what's going to have to pass for order to Charlie's Columbine Ranch and the nearby Ute reservation.Now the seven-foot rancher and part-time tribal investigator wants to carve out a little more space for himself alongside FBI Special Agent Lila Mae McTeague. That's right: Charlie has it in his head that he's going to get hitched. That is, unless Charlie's irascible aunt, her sixteen-year-old niece, and their visions of a dead woman—her throat slit from ear to ear—have anything to say about it.With a bit of romance and full measure of murder, Snake Dreams, the thirteenth in James D. Doss's widely loved Charlie Moon series, is a haunting tale best told under a full moon and beside a crackling fire.