Famed for portraying the full flavor of New Mexico, Rudolfo Anaya has been hailed as the godfather of Chicano literature in English. Now this "extraordinary storyteller" (Los Angeles Times Book Review) brings back his charismatic gumshoe Sonny Baca in an exciting new mystery set in the dangerous season of SHAMAN WINTER. Wheelchair-bound after a brutal battle with his archenemy Raven, Sonny's days have been spent in slow recovery while his nights have been tormented by strange dreams......
The year is 1958. Owl Woman, daughter of a shaman, will enter New Mexico with Oate's colonists as an angel of peace: one who carries dreams. In her hands, she bears a mysterious bowl. It is the Calendar of Dreams, the key to fate, without which there is no future. She has brought it to her groom on her wedding night - only to be abducted.
In this haunting landscape of his dreams Sonny Baca witnesses this, even as he hears the dream-shaman who implores him to find Owl Woman. He knows he must listen.
The world of spirits is the world of dreams, says Sonny's mentor, Don Eliseo. A wise elder and keeper of the past, he reveals that Owl Woman was Sonny's ancestor, and that the man who carried her off was none other than Raven, the Bringer of Curses. Raven has entered Sonny's dreams with one murderous agenda: to capture his soul by destroying his history.
Thus the nightmares rage on. One by one, in dream after dream...century after century....Sonny's ancestors disappear. And in order to fight Raven, he must be initiated into the realm of the spirit.
In his waking life Sonny is hired to find the mayor's daughter - kidnapped the night she stars in a Christmas pageant. To his horror he discovers four black feathers on the vanished teen's pillow - the mark of Raven. Before long, another girl disappears. But what is the connection between the vanishing girls and the women in Sonny's dreams?
A series of devastating revelations soon leads Sonny to uncover a plot by Raven that could bring down the city...the nation....and the world.
