Rating: 
Summary: Pleasant
Review: A pleasant read, and a relatively nice mystery, but, as the
book jacket proclaims, this is a book that "mixes mysticism
and murder." And the mix doesn't work as well as it should.
The "mysticism" part is a bit of an intrusion to most readers,
but, happily, that part is rather minor, so the mystery moves
along and is quite readable.The hero is a Southern Ute rancher, who doubles as a tribal
investigator on call to the tribal council, and he is likeable
enough, but this character doesn't quite resonate as a mystery
hero should. In this one, a young woman student at a nearby college goes
missing and has totally disappeared. Or has she? Because she
seems to be appealing to the rancher's elderly aunt, a tribal
shaman, to ask Charlie, her nephew, to meet her and offer some
help. There is a murder of a tribesman, plus the maiming of a
US Senator, that draws Charlie into a mix of local crime and
international intrique, and that combination really heats up the
story. There are explosions and more murders, plus a run-in with local
drug-running motorcycle gang members, and the action gets diverse, and it moves the reader along. The author introduces a romance angle, but it has a very hollow
feel to it, as though it was added after completion of the book,
and this angle doesn't ring true at all. Readable, but not very exciting, this book is a little too easy
to put down.
Rating:
Summary: Pleasant
Review: A pleasant read, and a relatively nice mystery, but, as the
book jacket proclaims, this is a book that "mixes mysticism
and murder." And the mix doesn't work as well as it should.
The "mysticism" part is a bit of an intrusion to most readers,
but, happily, that part is rather minor, so the mystery moves
along and is quite readable. The hero is a Southern Ute rancher, who doubles as a tribal
investigator on call to the tribal council, and he is likeable
enough, but this character doesn't quite resonate as a mystery
hero should. In this one, a young woman student at a nearby college goes
missing and has totally disappeared. Or has she? Because she
seems to be appealing to the rancher's elderly aunt, a tribal
shaman, to ask Charlie, her nephew, to meet her and offer some
help. There is a murder of a tribesman, plus the maiming of a
US Senator, that draws Charlie into a mix of local crime and
international intrique, and that combination really heats up the
story. There are explosions and more murders, plus a run-in with local
drug-running motorcycle gang members, and the action gets diverse, and it moves the reader along. The author introduces a romance angle, but it has a very hollow
feel to it, as though it was added after completion of the book,
and this angle doesn't ring true at all. Readable, but not very exciting, this book is a little too easy
to put down.
Rating:
Summary: Pleasant
Review: A pleasant read, and a relatively nice mystery, but, as the
book jacket proclaims, this is a book that "mixes mysticism
and murder." And the mix doesn't work as well as it should.
The "mysticism" part is a bit of an intrusion to most readers,
but, happily, that part is rather minor, so the mystery moves
along and is quite readable. The hero is a Southern Ute rancher, who doubles as a tribal
investigator on call to the tribal council, and he is likeable
enough, but this character doesn't quite resonate as a mystery
hero should. In this one, a young woman student at a nearby college goes
missing and has totally disappeared. Or has she? Because she
seems to be appealing to the rancher's elderly aunt, a tribal
shaman, to ask Charlie, her nephew, to meet her and offer some
help. There is a murder of a tribesman, plus the maiming of a
US Senator, that draws Charlie into a mix of local crime and
international intrique, and that combination really heats up the
story. There are explosions and more murders, plus a run-in with local
drug-running motorcycle gang members, and the action gets diverse, and it moves the reader along. The author introduces a romance angle, but it has a very hollow
feel to it, as though it was added after completion of the book,
and this angle doesn't ring true at all. Readable, but not very exciting, this book is a little too easy
to put down.
Rating: 
Summary: DROSS FROM DOSS
Review: Charlie Moon, the sleuth in DEAD SOUL, is not the second coming of Joe Leaphorn and despite what the Denver Post may say, the book does not "do for the Utes what Hillerman has done for the Navajo". Moon is more nearly the second coming of Batman -- a Ute lawman-turned-rancher who changes into a superhero when evildoers are abroad. He is hired by the Ute tribal chairman to investigate the murder of a Colorado senator's Ute driver. Moon's ranch, morbidly named the Columbine, abuts the Senator's ranch. Apart from hanging out with his aunt Daisy (a Ute shaman), Charlie spends all his time consorting with white people of both sexes. Before he tracks down the killer, buildings explode, bodies litter the landscape, and conspiracies hatch like prairie chickens. A Catholic healing ceremony helps Moon turn back into a happy rancher at the end. If this review sounds flip, it is because it is hard to take a book set in the southwest seriously that doesn't know the difference between a mountain lion and a bobcat. A mountain lion named "two-toes" figures prominently in the story. Yet the jacket flap calls this dangerous creature, which may be killing cattle and stalking Moon's ranch hands a "bobcat". (a bobcat is a 15-25 lb predator that lives on rodents and birds) The cat silhouetted on the jacket might be a bobcat, or even an arctic lynx, but it is certainly not a long-tailed mountain lion. Maybe the people who created the book's jacket didn't bother to read its contents. I recommend that you follow their example.
Rating:
Summary: DROSS FROM DOSS
Review: Charlie Moon, the sleuth in DEAD SOUL, is not the second coming of Joe Leaphorn and despite what the Denver Post may say, the book does not "do for the Utes what Hillerman has done for the Navajo". Moon is more nearly the second coming of Batman -- a Ute lawman-turned-rancher who changes into a superhero when evildoers are abroad. He is hired by the Ute tribal chairman to investigate the murder of a Colorado senator's Ute driver. Moon's ranch, morbidly named the Columbine, abuts the Senator's ranch. Apart from hanging out with his aunt Daisy (a Ute shaman), Charlie spends all his time consorting with white people of both sexes. Before he tracks down the killer, buildings explode, bodies litter the landscape, and conspiracies hatch like prairie chickens. A Catholic healing ceremony helps Moon turn back into a happy rancher at the end. If this review sounds flip, it is because it is hard to take a book set in the southwest seriously that doesn't know the difference between a mountain lion and a bobcat. A mountain lion named "two-toes" figures prominently in the story. Yet the jacket flap calls this dangerous creature, which may be killing cattle and stalking Moon's ranch hands a "bobcat". (a bobcat is a 15-25 lb predator that lives on rodents and birds) The cat silhouetted on the jacket might be a bobcat, or even an arctic lynx, but it is certainly not a long-tailed mountain lion. Maybe the people who created the book's jacket didn't bother to read its contents. I recommend that you follow their example.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent and moving Native American thriller
Review: Former Indian Police officer and now Ute investigator Charlie Moon is assigned the task of investigating a drunk Indian's death. The FBI and local police have already done their best and nobody expects Charlie to find much, but he believes in giving the tribe their money's worth. Besides, something about the murder just doesn't add up. With the help of his ghost-seeing aunt Daisy, Charile is able to find some clues that no one else looked for. But death has a way of exacting its price and Charlie ends up facing both physical danger and ghost-touch. Author James D. Doss combines adventure, emotional depth, clever dialogue, and a deep insight into both Native American and Christian spirituality to deliver an outstanding story. Doss's strong writing gripped me from early in the story and made me care about the seven-foot ex-lawman, his friend the local Chief of Police, and the other characters in this rich novel. Charlie Moon makes a wonderful character. His cutting dialogue made me laugh, but his deeper insights are what makes him stand out as a character. Doss combines a cynicism about humanity with a deep optimism--a difficult combination that definitely works. I recommend this fine novel highly.
Rating:
Summary: Are you kidding me?
Review: I finally gave up reading this joke around page 200. Doss is an amateur writer who breaks all the conventions of good writing, not for effect but out of incompetence. He is melodramatic and has dialogue that is absolutely unnatural and unconvincing. Doss has accomplished one thing with his writing--he has made it possible to feel pain while reading. Who else can describe two men eating animal crackers as: "...when the animal cookies had been decimated by the pair of voracious carnivores"? Please.
Rating: 
Summary: little contrived, but good read
Review: i really like James D Doss, and Dead Soul is no exception. yes, the premise is a little contrived: from a red-headed girl who needs to talk to Charlie Moon, a Senator who has a problem that only Charlie can solve, investigating the murder of a tribal member, a motorcycle gang out to do Charlie in, and a possible new love. it all sounds ridiculous written here, but it works. it's not Shakespeare, but it's not supposed to be. try it; you'll like it.
Rating:
Summary: For Us Living Here in the Middle World
Review: I've been reading Doss's "Shaman" series since it first appeared in paperback, and it just keeps getting better and better. "Dead Soul" is the best of the series. As a stand-alone work, it is excellent.
I love the joking, sly, tongue-in-cheek diaglogs Charlie Moon has with the other characters. I can see myself carrying one a similar one with him, since I have do have dialogs like that often. I love Doss's unexpected (and non-PC) observations of life - the human carnivores eating the animal cracker herbivores; the poisonous look of junk food, followed by how good it tastes; how close we here in the Middle World actually are to the those other worlds, above and below and just other.
But especially, I love how Doss can get inside a person's head, to examine how faith, hope and belief continue to call to us, no matter how grounded we think we are in this, the workaday Middle World -- and that hearts that truly believe are the same, no matter how different the outer trappings of their belief systems may appear.
And all this with wonderful descriptions of the land of the Southern Utes -- both is this world and the other -- and with a murder mystery that, like one of Charlie Moon's dialogs, talks to us on one level, but leads us along to something completely different.
I will remember the feeling of this book long after I have forgotten the details of the mystery.
Rating:
Summary: very entertaining thought-provoking thriller
Review: Senator Patch Davidson, senior member of the Judiciary Committee, waits for his chauffeur Billy Smoke, a member of the Southern Ute tribe of Southern Colorado, to pick him up. However, someone assaults him hitting the Senator in the head and repeatedly in the knees. When Patch wakes up in the hospital, he realizes that he is a paraplegic and Billy is dead. Tribal Chairman Oscar Sweetwater asks Columbine ranch owner Charlie Moon, a part time investigator for the tribe, to make inquiries into the deadly incident. Charlie concludes that no one had a valid reason to kill Billy and lets the matter drop. Four months later, Oscar asks Charlie to meet him at the Senator's Boxcar Ranch because someone is leaking sensitive material to a foreign country. Patch wants to find out who it is and how it's being done. Charlie figures out that there were two men who attacked the Senator and killed Billy and the leak started with them. As Charlie comes closer to identifying the assault duo, he also realizes that the person committing treason will attack him if he knew how close the sleuth has come to uncovering the truth. James D. Doss' protagonist is not a typical private eye as he is a former policeman content to run his ranch; Charlie Moon does not rely on brute strength to get the job done. In his own way the hero is a genius who outthinks his opponent while keeping a sense of humor. DEAD SOUL is a very entertaining thought-provoking novel that grabs and keeps reader attention. Harriet Klausner
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