Nightland: 8

After Billy Keene sees a dead body and a suitcase fall from the sky in rural New Mexico, he and his hunting buddy Will Striker, both of them half-Cherokee, decide to keep the $850,000 they find in the suitcase--and so begins Owens's solemn and surely told third Native American crime thriller (after Bone Game, 1994). Immediately, the two friends are attacked from above by a helicopter, which they shoot down in a brief battle. They try to hide the money along with any evidence of the shoot-out, but soon the local sheriff informs them of an impending investigation. Their task grows even more difficult when Billy begins a romance with a beautiful, mysterious Native American woman, and when Billy's elderly grandfather--who attempts to call on ancient Native American forces to extricate the friends from their predicament--disappears from the family ranch. After a local drug dealer comes calling to recover the cash, a series of violent confrontations erupts. Owens handles Billy and Will's romantic difficulties with compassion, adding resonance to a well-wrought thriller capped by a twist-filled climax. (Aug.)