Monday, June 6, 2011

DARK SHAMAN, Mystery/Horror, Published 2003, available at Amazon

 This is an earlier Robert Sable Mystery with a horror twist.
            Children are being kidnapped and slaughtered in the Alaskan bush.  Alaska State Trooper Robert Sable takes over the investigation from Nicholas Kelly, who has vanished without a trace. Sable has to deal with an elusive killer who is more cunning than all his previous adversaries.  FBI Agent Annelle Carpenter joins Sable on the case to help track down the serial killer.  Their hunt encompasses the town of Token, nearby Indian villages, and hundreds miles of wilderness.  As they interrogate local rapists, pedophiles and sexual deviants, the bodies of children keep turning up.  Each clue and suspect leads to a dead end.
           A Tlingit village shaman, Dan-e-wåk, believes the killer is a powerful ancient evil shaman, Auktelchnīk, who has returned.  Though Sable and his partner scoff at the idea, the mounting evidence seems to validate the absurd theory.  Working almost 24 hours a day, Sable realizes he needs a break to get a new perspective on the case.  He takes a weekend off to visit an archeological excavation with professor Lisa Ridell from the University of Fairbanks.  At the dig, Sable finds ancient evidence of similar murders.  Could this be coincidence or is someone imitating the ancient legend?  When he returns, he discovers someone is killing off the suspects one by one.  Is the new killer an irate parent or someone else?  If the serial killer is the ancient shaman, how do they find him and stop him?

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