The Weeping Woman — Micah S. Hackler

Author of Legend of the Dead, Coyote Returns, The Shadow Catcher, The Dark Canyon, The Mutes, and The Owl and the Raven.

San Juan Pueblo -- the dead of winter. Police Chief Joseph Aquino has a suspicious drowning -- the Director of the Pueblo Art Council. A gallery owner in Santa Fe is implicated . . . as is a local artist. As he digs deeper, Aquino faces mounting opposition from the new Pueblo Sheriff and the Tribal Council. Peeling back the layers of a 300-year-old legend, the police chief's authority is challenged, his family threatened.

In San Phillipe County, children are tormented by a shadow presence. A student is abducted. At a snowbound lodge, a shootout leaves a man dead. Complications mount as Sheriff Cliff Lansing attempts to unravel one clue after another. Tina Morales' grandmother can only provide guidance from a distance . . . but she knows full well the Evil that Lansing and Morales now face.

On the snowy banks of the Rio Grande, a haunting siren sings her melancholy lullaby. Lives are sacrificed. Lives are saved. All the while, The Weeping Woman beckons the living to join her beneath the waters.