as his mixed-blood Cherokee protagonists encounter the results of a drug-money drop gone bad; the drug dealer, pushed from his plane, soars like a vulture and is impaled on a New Mexican cedar snag while his $850,000 in cash drops at the feet of the two deer-hunting ranchers.Always one who loves to create the subtle blend of myth and modern, Owens has carefully crafted a retelling of the Cherokee legend of the thunder twins born to Kana'ti and Selu, the first man and woman. Close friends Will Striker and Billy Keene have enough trouble already,with a drought parching their land and their women discontent to live with them. Choosing to regard the cash as a gift from the great spirit, the two inadvertently unleash a torrent of evil activity that all seems to arrive from the west, the Nightland of Cherokee legend. Add an ancient grandfather who is literally fading fast, a genial ghost, an insatiable shape-shifter, and sundry drug dealers with varied agendas and Owens has a mystery that moves along at a clip that will satisfy, among others, the readers of Tony Hillerman's Indian Country mysteries. Humor and irony are the hallmark of all of Owens' novels, as are the thoughtful, non-stereotypical Native American characters he places on the stage. All of his sound and fury signifies something: a shift away from Indians as symbols of the past, of drunken victims of Spanish and Anglo invaders. Cultures meet and merge in this marginal world where the stage is lit by heat lightning and the orchestra pit contains thunder, singing coyotes and exploding bullets.