Overview
Colorado rancher and tribal investigator Charlie Moon is taking a night off to play some poker with his best friend, Scott Parris, Granite Creek’s chief of police, when Scott’s dispatcher cuts in with an emergency call. It seems a man was on the phone with his wife when their call was interrupted by a bloodcurdling scream and the most gruesome noises he’d ever heard. Would they mind checking it out?
Arriving on scene, they discover that the man’s wife, one of three daughters of a wealthy and powerful rancher, has been mauled beyond recognition.
Even after her two sisters—-one of whom is a popular TV psychic who on that very night’s show reported “seeing” the real-time murder of one of her fans—-turn up at the DA’s office, demanding answers, the smart money and forensic experts are still laying blame on a hungry bear. But once the wheels of justice are turning and the ratings for Cassandra Sees are going through the roof, the surviving sisters are awfully quick to move on in all kinds of ways.
With eyebrows and suspicions raised, Charlie and his irascible aunt Daisy, a Ute shaman whose investigative talents rely heavily on help from the spirit world, set out to track down a killer.
A tight plot, quick wit, and clever crimes make Three Sisters, the twelfth installment in the popular Charlie Moon series, the newest must-have from James D. Doss.
Synopsis
Praise for James D. Doss
“A clever plot, colorful writing, and wisecracking asides will keep readers turning the pages.”
—-Publishers Weekly on Stone Butterfly
“Droll, crafty, upper-echelon reading.”
—-Kirkus Reviews (starred review) on Stone Butterfly
“Highly entertaining...Big money, big gambles, and a surprise ending will keep readers turning the pages.”
—-Publishers Weekly on Shadow Man
“A classy bit of storytelling that combines myth, dreams, and plot complications so wily they’ll rattle your synapses and tweak your sense of humor. For a good time, read Doss.”
—-Kirkus Reviews (starred review) on The Witch’s Tongue
“Doss does for the Utes what Tony Hillerman has done for the Navajo.”
—-The Denver Post
Publishers Weekly
The12th Charlie Moon mystery (after 2006's Stone Butterfly) from world-class storyteller Doss has more twists and turns than the road to Charlie's acerbic Aunt Daisy's. The ratings for Colorado's most famous TV psychic, Cassandra Spencer, go through the roof when she describes a truck-stop murder as it takes place, but she fails to predict the horrific death of her newly wed eldest sister, Astrid, apparently mauled by a wild animal. Rancher Charlie Moon, a Ute tribal investigator, and his best friend, Granite Creek police chief Scott Parris, team up with Aunt Daisy and her connections in the spirit world to search for an inhumane-and possibly inhuman-killer, while Cassandra and her remaining sister, Beatrice, vie for the hand of Astrid's widower, who has secrets of his own. Doss's narrative and chatty asides are finely cut gems. This latest Colorado mystery leaves no doubt that Doss has carved out his own niche. (Nov.)
Copyright 2007 Reed Business InformationEditorials
Publishers Weekly
The12th Charlie Moon mystery (after 2006's Stone Butterfly) from world-class storyteller Doss has more twists and turns than the road to Charlie's acerbic Aunt Daisy's. The ratings for Colorado's most famous TV psychic, Cassandra Spencer, go through the roof when she describes a truck-stop murder as it takes place, but she fails to predict the horrific death of her newly wed eldest sister, Astrid, apparently mauled by a wild animal. Rancher Charlie Moon, a Ute tribal investigator, and his best friend, Granite Creek police chief Scott Parris, team up with Aunt Daisy and her connections in the spirit world to search for an inhumane-and possibly inhuman-killer, while Cassandra and her remaining sister, Beatrice, vie for the hand of Astrid's widower, who has secrets of his own. Doss's narrative and chatty asides are finely cut gems. This latest Colorado mystery leaves no doubt that Doss has carved out his own niche. (Nov.)
Copyright 2007 Reed Business InformationLibrary Journal
The 11th entry in Doss's Charlie Moon and Daisy Peralta mysteries (after Stone Butterfly) involves a local TV psychic who is one of the three sisters of the title, another sister who is killed by a bear in her bedroom, and the third who conspires against them both. What could have been a strange and quirky story is overwhelmed by Doss's overly elaborate narrative style. Charlie Moon, his aunt, the very old Ute shaman Daisy, and their friend, the local sheriff, have been fun characters in the past, but here the author takes them from charmingly quirky to annoyingly cutesy. Encumbered by a dense prose style that seems to try to imitate the wordiness of Victorian authors, the story's momentum frequently bogs down just as something interesting happens. Some of the books in this series have been delightful; unfortunately, this is not one of them. Purchase if the series is popular. [See Prepub Mystery, LJ7/07.]
—Ann Forister
Kirkus Reviews
The 12th helping of Doss's screwball logic and witticisms from the mouths of a seven-foot Ute, his blackmailing auntie and a platoon of wacky sidekicks. Andrew Turner had two wives. The first was eaten by pigs, the second by bears. After a brief marriage to the second wife's sister, Andrew came to a peculiar end. He was either scared by wisps of ectoplasm into driving off a cliff or carried off by a hairy sasquatch-or none of the above. To help his best pal Scott Parris, Granite Creek police chief, figure out which, Ute rancher/tribal investigator Charlie Moon (Stone Butterfly, 2006, etc.) lets himself be deputized, which would be a grand idea if only it had prevented a third sister, a dubious psychic, from dying too. Charlie's Aunt Daisy, who often made up premonitions herself when she got tired of waiting for them to come to her, adds a few tart words and scrambles the plot to a fare-thee-well. And skinny Sarah Frank, the teenager with a behemoth crush on Charlie, has a moment of glory when he admits he needs her. But the real showstopper is the sasquatch herself, carting around something that looks like a stuffed burrito and desperate to learn her letters so that she can read romance novels. A belly-laugh primer that breaks every rule in the mystery genre, something for which Doss's fans should be eternally grateful.From the Publisher
Praise for James D. Doss“Doss has reproduced the land of the southern Colorado Utes with vivid affection.”
—-The Dallas Morning News
“A clever plot, colorful writing, and wisecracking asides will keep readers turning the pages.”—-Publishers Weekly on Stone Butterfly
“Droll, crafty, upper-echelon reading.”—-Kirkus Reviews on Stone Butterfly
“Highly entertaining...Big money, big gambles, and a surprise ending will keep readers turning the pages.”—-Publishers Weekly on Shadow Man
“A classy bit of storytelling that combines myth, dreams, and plot complications so wily they’ll rattle your synapses and tweak your sense of humor. For a good time, read Doss.”
—-Kirkus Reviews on The Witch’s Tongue
“Doss does for the Utes what Tony Hillerman has done for the Navajo.”
—-The Denver Post