Kirjahaku

An inexplicable murder of a young Apache boy draws Deputy Bren Allred and Apache Tribal Policeman Victor into a mystery that can only be solved when they tie the murder to a century old robbery of Army Paymaster Major Wham. Set in both the old West and today's ranch country, the story explores the natural and cultural history, and people of the contemporary rural southwest.

San Carlos Apache Tribal Police Sergeant Al Victor has to walk a thin line between protecting traditional Apache culture and enforcing criminal law as he tracks a medicine man gone-bad onto sacred ground. Manny Sanchez comes under attack from a drug smuggler. Bren Allred hunts for the missing Miss Graham County, and in the process delivers a teenage boy from miscarried justice. All this in a background of day-to-day law enforcement concerns, missing persons, and murder.

Intrigue and murder along the US/Mexico Border. Seventeen-year-old Mariana Villalobos' mystic gift creates a sensation in northern Mexico as hundreds of people undergo a personal religious epiphany. Even gangsters reject crime. Seeing revenues tumble in the drug trade, the Liones cartel issues a hit order on the girl. The Mexican police hide Mariana in the Gila Valley of Arizona while they work with a defector and international law enforcement to dismantle the gang. Graham County Deputies Bren Allred and Manny Sanchez join forces with San Carlos Apache Tribal Policeman Al Victor to identify assassins and protect Mariana. It's a race against time for agents of the DEA, ICE, Spanish Policia National, and the Mexican Policia Judicial. Can they bring the Liones cartel to justice before the girl is harmed?

The murder of an archeology student pulls Apache Tribal Officer Al Victor into what seems to him a senseless killing. The Arizona Antiquities Task Force brings Deputies Bren Allred and Manny Sanchez into the case. They find themselves investigating a sophisticated high-dollar artifact theft ring centered around the unique Baleful Owl effigy. The ruthless ring leader is not motivated by greed, but vengeance for imagined wrongs. Before the case is solved one of the officers will be the unwitting target of the skilled assassin. The Baleful Owl joins The Wham Curse and Saints & Sinners as the third mystery in Virgil Alexander's rural cop series. Mixed with the main story line is the natural and human history of the Southwest. The cultures of the native tribes, the rural ranchers and farmers, and Hispanic traditions are woven into the unique fabric of the contemporary West.

International intrigue, an enigmatic murder, substance abuse, vengeful stalking, undercover police work, and their effect on families, are all woven through this story set in the American Southwest. Sergeant Allred must deal with all this while keeping it from Monica who is having a troubled pregnancy. Deputies Sanchez and Haley are undercover investigating copper theft, and unknowingly espionage. Apache police Sergeant Victor is plagued by his own devil's as he deals with his rage over murder by a diplomat, and the ever present problem of alcohol on the reservation.