Book Review: Shaman Winter, Book #3 in the Sonny Baca Mystery Quartet by Rudolfo Anaya

Sonny does not emerge unscathed from his autumnal adventures with baboon heart transplant pioneers, cocaine and heroin entrepreneurs, and hot air balloon casualties. He endures months in a wheelchair, thanks to Jerry Stammer, as cocaine and heroin businessman and heart surgeon, using defibrillators to protect himself in a drug-filled warehouse from charges, proceedings, and sentences for deaths and drugs. He finds himself nevertheless capable of apprehending kidnappers of young girls and preventing future occurrences.

Cantina-owning girlfriend Rita López, Tlaxcala-trained healer Lorenza Villa, and Pueblo-practicing neighbor Don Eliseo Romero give Sonny survivalist edges. They have the smarts, stamina, and strength to help Sonny persevere in his investigations. Sonny is able to stop kidnapping as the season’s high-profile crime. 

Don Eliseo, Lorenza, and Rita judge spiritual cleansing and consciousness as critical in the struggle between: 

• chaos-loving, evil-promoting super-witches (tlahuelpuchis) and witches (brujos); and 
• good-facilitating, harmony-loving healers (curanderas) and humans (such as the Hopi and the Pueblo Native Americans).

They know that Sonny must be able to dream, fly, and meditate his way along spirit-world pathways through awareness of and cooperation with his nagual (animal spirit), Coyote. They thereby let Sonny stop Raven’s dreamland invasions to:

• eliminate shamanic ancestors, from the time of Owl Woman in 1598 onward; and
• leave Sonny without bloodlines from which to descend.

The three-pronged guidance means that Sonny does not get factored out of the cycle of life, but at super-high costs. 

Raven easily notices what and who are important in Sonny’s personal life and professional career. He therefore opts to:

• cause Rita to miscarry her and Sonny’s unborn twin daughters;
• imprison the spirits of Rita’s and Sonny’s twins within his nagual’s chaotic, dark, raven-filled world;
• murder Don Eliseo; and
• mutilate Chica, Sonny’s red dachshund.

Raven plans his revenge to be so overwhelming as to delay or discourage counter-actions. But Sonny’s love instead questions how to honor the dead, release imprisoned souls, and treat one-eyed vision.

So Shaman Winter regales Book #3 readers with culturally enriching, educationally entertaining, geo-politically enthralling adventures amid New Mexico’s healers, animal spirits, and super-witches), thanks to:

• Rudolfo Anaya, author; and
• Warner Books, Inc., publisher. 

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

"Shaman Winter," Rudolfo Anaya's third installment in his Sonny Baca quartet, follows its predecessors' seasons of summer and autumn.
3rd Street, Barelas neighborhood; northward view toward downtown Albuquerque; wintry New Year's Eve, Sunday, Dec. 31, 2006, 06:27: Asaavedra32, CC BY SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SnowyAlbuquerqueDowntown.JPG

the naguals, shapeshifting creatures
Codex Yoalli Ehēcatl, known post-Conquest as Codex Borgia, page 22: Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Codex_Borgia_page_22.jpg

Rudolfo Anaya reveals in "Shaman Winter" that Sonny Baca's nagual (animal spirt) is a coyote (Canis latrans).
coyote in Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, southern Socorro County, west central New Mexico: Shanthanu Bhardwaj (~Shanth), CC BY-SA 2.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/tengen/8667330086/

In "Shaman Winter," Sonny Baca travels back in time via his dreams to the expedition into New Mexico (Nuevo México) led by New World conquistador Juan de Oñate (1550 - June 3, 1626).
Oñate's expedition commenced in April 1598 with his crossing of the muddy, slow waters of the Rio Grande near El Paso.
Rio Grande in west El Paso near New Mexico state line; Monday, June 24, 2013, 14:49: B575, CC BY SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rio_Grande_EP_Upper_Valley.jpg

In his dreams in "Shaman Winter," Sonny Baca captains in Juan de Oñate's 1598 search for fabled Seven Cities of Cíbola in failed footsteps of Francisco Vázquez de Coronado (1510 – September 22, 1554).
"Landscape with an Episode from the Conquest of America"; ca. 1535 oil on panel by Jan Jansz Mostaert (ca. 1474 - ca. 1552/53)
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, North Holland province, western Netherlands: JoJan, CC BY SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jan_Jansz_Mostaert_-_Verovering_van_Amerika_001.JPG

Anaya, Rudolfo. 1999. Shaman Winter. New York, NY: Warner Books, Inc.