Grandmother Spider

Mysteries with Native American characters seem to come in two varieties: tough-minded and realistic (think Tony Hillerman's Leaphorn/Chee stories and Peter Bowen's books about Montana's Gabriel Du Pr ), or softer and sillierDlike Doss's Shaman series about Ute policeman Charlie Moon and his dotty old aunt, Daisy Perika. Number six in the series is even sillier than its predecessors, setting up a ludicrous situationDthree men savagely attacked by what seems to be a giant spider or an alien space vehicleDand then daring the reader to come up with some other, more rational explanation. Moon, a slow-moving giant who would rather eat or fish than do the heavy lifting involved in police work, doesn't add much energy or action to the story: he spends most of his time jousting verbally with his aunt Daisy about her visions and beliefs or romancing a totally unlikely Hollywood glamour girl dropped into the scene to extend a thin story. And while it's true that most readers won't guess what it was that actually attacked rocket scientist William Pizinski's pickup truck on the shore of Navajo Lake in Colorado, it's also true that not many of them will stick around until the dumb little secret is revealed. (Jan. 9)