C.E. Murphy, Coyote Dreams

Coyote Dreams

C.E. Murphy

Luna, May 2007, $14.95

Twenty-something Seattle Police Officer Joanne Walker finds her law enforcement world and her tyro shaman realm (her birth name is Siobhan Walkingstick) turned upside down. Much of the police force is down with some form of the "blue flu" although perhaps the "blue sleep" would be more descriptive. Even Joanne's superior officer, Captain Michael Morrison, who never takes a sick day, is missing in action.

Jo has her own sleep disorder as she keeps having weird dreams filled with vivid scenes from her past. Initially she assumed her spirit guide, Coyote, was transmitting visions to her as part of her Shaman apprenticeship, but he stopped making contact so she has some doubts about whom the sender is. Jo realizes her two worlds have collided due to the wormhole projects of Navaho twins, quantum physicists Barbara and Mark Bragg. They have opened a portal that has allowed evil butterfly demons and a Navajo god to go through into Seattle. Only she has the Mojo to stop the blue sleep plague and close the wormhole door, but she is a Shaman in training without her mentor around to guide her.

COYOTE DREAMS, the third Walker romantic fantasy (see THUNDERBIRD FALL and URBAN SHAMAN), is a delightful paranormal mystery in which the heroine struggles with preventing a widening disaster. The fast-paced storyline grips the audience from the onset as a bewildered Jo begins to figure out the cause, but not the solution. Readers will enjoy her efforts to save Seattle as the reluctant URBAN SHAMAN is forced to travel the mystical path to save those she cares about in the mundane realm.