Nightland

Rating:
Summary: A Great Book!
Review: A body falls from the sky in the dry New Mexico wilds. Two native American ranchers sight the mysterious image and set off to find it. Nearby to the body impaled in the limbs of a tree, they find a suitcase full of money.

This could be their lucky break, or their worst nightmare. They decide to risk keeping the money -- and to face the inevitable consequences . . .

The native American insights are a delight to read. Louis Owens's beautifully crafted prose leaves a last impression.

Rating:
Summary: A Storm Out Of The West
Review: Billy Keene and Will Striker, the main characters of Louis Owens' novel Nightland, are half-breed Cherokees living on failing ranches in New Mexico that their grandparents bought from the Mexican-Americans whose family had a grant from Spain [who took the land from Native Americans in the first place]. They're out hunting deer when a man [who we find out is of Pueblo Indian blood] falls from the sky and ends up skewered on a juniper tree. A suitcase full of money falls with him. Despite misgivings, Billy and Will keep the money. Then all hell breaks loose. Nightland is at heart a thriller, but as with Owens' other novels, it is also a musing on identity. Native American spirituality and the supernatural play a key role in the novel, so if suspension of disbelief is a problem for the potential reader, don't start this book. This is a much faster read than Bone Game and The Sharpest Sight. I found Nightland to be one of the highlights of my summer reading. Oh, and as if my opinion actually counted, I think Richard Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino should buy the rights to Nightland and make a movie. One of the pieces of sad news from this summer was that Louis Owens had taken his own life. He left us five great novels, including Nightland.

Rating:
Summary: "A well-wrought thriller" says Publisher's Weekly
Review: Owens' third American Indian crime thriller has received praise from Kirkus, Publisher's Weekly, Booklist and others. The consequences of trying to keep found money (in this case, $850,000 dropped from a drug dealer's plane in remote New Mexico) take ranchers Will Striker and Billy Keene on a wild ride. Enter sex and magical realism, stir, and find yourself reading a "well-wrought thriller capped by a twist-filled climax."