Thunderbird Falls (Walker Papers Series #2)

It's the end of the world…

Again.

For all the bodies she's encountering, you'd think beat cop Joanne Walker works in Homicide. But no, Joanne's a reluctant shaman who last saved mankind three months ago—surely she deserves more of a break! Yet, incredibly, "Armageddon, Take Two" is mere days away.

There's not a minute to waste.

Yet when her spirit guide inexplicably disappears, Joanne needs help from other sources. Especially after she accidentally unleashes Lower World demons on Seattle. Damn. With the mother of all showdowns gathering force, it's the worst possible moment for Joanne to realize she should have learned more about controlling her powers. Or to discover she's being lied to…

Publishers Weekly

Joanne Walker, a likable young Seattle beat cop, continues to learn the ropes of her even more dangerous job as a shaman in Murphy's spirited second urban fantasy (after 2005's Urban Shaman). After a fencing lesson at the university, Joanne stumbles on the body of Cassandra Tucker, a 20-year-old junior, in the showers. The autopsy report states that Cassandra's death was due to a heart condition, but Joanne suspects otherwise. In her role as shaman, Joanne investigates "the Dead Zone," a place between life and death, while her earthside sleuthing leads to a coven that in recognition of her special abilities invites her to take Cassandra's place in opening a passage between worlds for Virissong, an ancient Native American spirit who's expected to end a local heat wave and global warming. Unfortunately, if not surprisingly, Joanne discovers after several nightmarish and somewhat bloated magical misadventures that Virissong is one nasty lying serpent. (May) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Though C.E. (Catie) Murphy lives in Alaska, she has never watched a single episode of Northern Exposure or helped a film crew simulate terrorist attacks on the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. She has, though, been forced to convince people that she neither lives in an igloo, rides a polar bear, nor has a penguin for a pet. She's married to a chef, has two small cats, and a large dog who is afraid of everything.

According to one source, Catie began her writing career when she ran away from home at age five to write copy for the circus that'd come to town. You would think she'd remember this, but her own earliest memory regarding writing is from age six, when she submitted three poems to a school publication. The teacher producing the magazine selected (inevitably) the one she thought was by far the worst, but also told her — a six-year-old kid — to keep writing.

It's likely she would have, anyway, but she took the advice to heart. And a good thing, too: far more people after that (some of them famous authors!) told her to do anything other than write, if she possibly could.

It turns out she couldn't.

Her hobbies include swimming, walking, traveling, drawing and moose-wrestling.