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Accessories:
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Similar Products:
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It's pretty well understood that mysteries come with an implied contract. Authors, for their part, promise to deliver plots and resolutions, however improbable, with some degree of plausibility. Readers, in turn, give an author a 50-50 shot by turning down the gain on their innate disbelief. Then along comes Grandmother Spider and all bets are off. Southern Ute tribal policeman Charlie Moon has a problem. It seems that, thanks to the imprudent squishing of a wayward spider, the giant spirit Grandmother Spider has risen from her cave below Navajo Lake and exacted revenge on humanity by snatching the research scientist William Pizinski and Tommy Tonompicket, the local carouser with whom he was drinking. Charlie knows this because the squisher was Sarah Frank, the 9-year-old ward of his elderly, shamanic, and altogether elsewhere aunt, Daisy Perika. And Daisy got it straight from a dwarfish spirit called a pitukupf. The pitukupf half smiled, exposing jagged rows of yellowed teeth. He vigorously stirred the crooked stick in the embers under the apparition, kindling new flames. The dwarf ceremoniously lifted the helical baton like a conductor calling dark chords from an unseen orchestra. The glowing sparks swirled up the column of heated air... and the hideous image of the eight-legged creature followed. As it ascended, the grayish form took on the bright orange hue of the yellow flames beneath it. The apparition grew larger, the entrapped man struggled vainly in hope of release. And screamed piteously for someone to help him. And that's not the half of it. Before long, Charlie and his friend, Granite Creek Police Chief Scott Parris, are up to their gun belts in national security issues, mutilated bodies, hideous creatures roaming the countryside snatching sandwiches from the mouths of 80-year-olds, and the bizarre reappearance of the two missing and now-amnesiac tipplers. And, happily, that's still not the half of it. Grandmother Spider is Charlie Moon's sixth, strangest, and perhaps funniest airing (from 1994's The Shaman Sings through 1999's The Night Visitor). With mystery and mysticism enough to satisfy Hillerman's fans, and humor, memorable characterization, and good writing enough to satisfy everyone else, who's going to quibble about a silly old contract? -- Michael Hudson
 
 Customer Reviews 
Love the whole Charlie Moon series
Rating: 
Magic, mystery, crime, inticate plots dosed with laugh-out-loud humor set on the Ute Indian reservation in SW Colorado. James Doss' characters are wonderful. Charlie Moon is big, brave, smart and lovable (the big jug head) and always gets his man (or woman). Even though he's a lawman, he doesn't always follow the law (but no one is supposed to know that). His elderly Aunt Daisy Perika gives a wonderful depth with her cantankerous wit and shamanistic dreams. When she teams up with her friend Louise-Marie, you know trouble's on the way. Part mystery, part western, part spooky, always tricky. Once you start this series, you'll hunger for more.
gotcha
Rating: 
This was interesting, and very readable. I enjoyed it, although I still say the author uses foreshadowing way too much. But in this story, the author plays some really good tricks on the reader - Charlie Moon keeps repeating there is a reasonable explanation for everything, but we get sidetracked by the metaphysical - the visions, shamans, symbolism, dreams and so on. I usually can figure out just about any mystery, but the author had me on this one. I was surprised at the resolution of the mystery, and had a good laugh, too.
Grandmother Spider: A Charlie Moon Mystery
Rating:
Doss does it again. Charlie Moon is a wonderful character and Doss knows how to spin a yarn!
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