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Santa Fe artist Jimmy Mackey wakes up in his studio on Canyon Road with a massive hangover. His morning gets worse when a police cruiser pulls into his parking lot next to a strange car and even worse when police find a dead woman in the trunk of the car. The dead woman turns out to be the estranged wife of the Santa Fe mayor. The ultra-sensitive case winds up in the hands of retiring police detective Fernando Lopez, the only detective with enough experience to conduct the politically fraught investigation. Lopez interviews Mackey and the artists who were drinking at Jimmy’s studio the night of the murder, all deeply suspicious with flimsy alibis. He also interviews the mayor in a tense scene at City Hall. When Mackey flees Santa Fe, Lopez chases him across northern New Mexico––from haunted Ghost Ranch to the counterculture city of Taos, where he finds Mackey hiding at the home of one of his ex-wives. Before Mackey can be arrested he is shot and killed by two assassins. Suddenly the Police Chief and the Mayor want Lopez to close the case, since the main suspect is now dead. When Lopez refuses, the two assassins come after him. Lopez senses a cover-up. The case takes a surprising turn at the end, which forces Lopez to rethink his idea of justice. Includes Readers Guide.

Emeritus Professor of English and Journalism at the University of Cincinnati, James C. Wilson lived in Santa Fe during the turbulent 1970s and wrote for the Santa Fe New Mexican and the Santa Fe Reporter. He has lived in Albuquerque since 2012. He is the author of eleven previous books, including Hiking New Mexico’s Chaco Canyon: The Trails, The Ruins, The History and Santa Fe, City of Refuge, An Improbable Memoir of the Counterculture in addition to Peyote Wolf, Smokescreen, and Ghost Canyon in the Fernando Lopez Santa Fe Mystery Series.

On the cover: Roadside cross at Santa Rosa de Lima, near Abiquiu, New Mexico.

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Website: http://www.jamesclydewilson.com

Hardcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-449-9
172 pp.,$32.95

Softcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-380-5
172 pp.,$19.95

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-673-7
172 pp.,$4.99

The murder of a homeless man and reports of a red-faced prowler seen on Canyon Road trigger rumors of the Devil loose in Santa Fe, but Private Investigator Fernando Lopez discovers more sinister threats from anti-immigrant politicians and the Sinaloa Cartel from Mexico.

After the murder of a homeless man in downtown Santa Fe, Private Investigator Fernando Lopez is visited by a local artist who claims to have seen the Devil on Canyon Road. Lopez is dubious, but rumors continue to spread as more Santa Feans see a red-faced beast in the area. When a second homeless man is murdered, Lopez decides to investigate. The case quickly becomes more complicated––and dangerous––when a violent anti-immigrant movement called Take Back Our Streets wants to use the murders as a pretext to ban immigrants and homeless people from the streets of the city. Lopez discovers troubling information about the leaders of the movement, information that links them to the murders. Meanwhile, sightings of a red-faced beast continue on Canyon Road. Lopez decides to stalk the so-called beast and pursues it to an old Forest Service building on Upper Canyon Road. The building is being rented by Ricardo Aragon, a Mexican painter who, Lopez discovers, is on the run from the Sinaloa Cartel of Mexico. Unwittingly, Lopez finds himself up against the Sinaloa Cartel, the Take Back Our Streets movement, and the Devil on Canyon Road. Includes Readers Guide.

Emeritus Professor of English and Journalism at the University of Cincinnati, James C. Wilson lived in Santa Fe during the turbulent 1970s and wrote for the Santa Fe New Mexican and the Santa Fe Reporter. He has lived in Albuquerque since 2012. He is the author of thirteen previous books, including Hiking New Mexico’s Chaco Canyon: The Trails, The Ruins, The History and Santa Fe, City of Refuge, An Improbable Memoir of the Counterculture in addition to Peyote Wolf, Smokescreen, Ghost Canyon, The Dead Go Fast and Painted Skull Ranch in the Fernando Lopez Santa Fe Mystery Series.

Cover art by Virginia Maria Romero.

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Hardcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-616-5
158 pp.,$32.95

Softcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-540-3
158 pp.,$22.95

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-715-4
158 pp.,$4.99

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Park Ranger Pete Chavez is murdered in an ancient ruin at Chaco Canyon as he makes his nighttime security check. Santa Fe Police Detective Fernando Lopez is sent to investigate and soon realizes there may be a connection between the Chavez murder and the murder two days earlier of an eccentric Santa Fean by the name of Tom Flynn, whose grandfather had worked for Richard Wetherill during the first archaeological excavations of the ruins at Chaco Canyon. In Flynn’s ransacked house Detective Lopez finds a journal written by Flynn’s grandfather detailing a cache of jewelry and artifacts hidden by Wetherill somewhere in or near the ruin of Pueblo Bonito. On orders Detective Lopez teams up with Patricia Begay, an FBI agent of Navajo descent. Moving between Santa Fe and the 1,200-year-old necropolis at Chaco Canyon, they find themselves embroiled in a violent world of greed and murder. Their jobs are made more difficult by ancient superstitions and mysterious sightings in the canyon. In order to solve the case Fernando must follow a dangerous trail of enigmatic clues left by the killer or killers and steer a treacherous course between modern science and a 1,200-year-old world of ghosts. Includes Readers Guide.

Emeritus Professor of English and Journalism at the University of Cincinnati, James C. Wilson lived in Santa Fe during the turbulent 1970s and wrote for the Santa Fe New Mexican and the Santa Fe Reporter. He has lived in Albuquerque since 2012. He is the author of nine previous books, including Hiking New Mexico’s Chaco Canyon: The Trails, The Ruins, The History, in addition to Peyote Wolf and Smokescreen, in the Fernando Lopez Santa Fe Mystery Series.

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Hardcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-407-9
162 pp.,$32.95

Softcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-352-2
162 pp.,$18.95

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-646-1
162 pp.,$3.99

When Santa Fe musician Danny Ortiz is murdered, Private Investigator Fernando Lopez is hired by Ortiz’s wife to find the killer and his investigation takes him to mysterious Painted Skull Ranch in Taos, a 200-year-old haunted ranch where Lopez uncovers a viper’s nest of greed, treachery, and murder.

Santa Fe musician Danny Ortiz is murdered by two men while walking home from a gig in downtown Santa Fe. Police believe thieves or vagrants attacked Ortiz, but his wife disagrees and hires Private Investigator Fernando Lopez to find the real killers. Lopez learns that Ortiz had been scheduled to perform in an upcoming concert at the Lensic Theater with Dallas Longstreet, a nationally known musician from Austin, Texas. However, Longstreet had bolted from his Lensic commitment and his marital problems and fled to a mysterious ranch outside Taos rented by an old friend and drug dealer, Travis Walker. Lopez goes to Taos to question Longstreet and discovers the ranch––Painted Skull Ranch––is a haunted two hundred-year-old historic property that includes an abandoned penitente morada. Lopez doesn’t know if Longstreet is staying at the ranch by choice or being held there as a prisoner. The plot thickens when Longstreet overdoses in suspicious circumstances orchestrated by his wife and her lover, Travis Walker. Every step of the way Lopez’s investigation takes him deeper into a web of deceit and betrayal, ending in murder. Includes Readers Guide

Emeritus Professor of English and Journalism at the University of Cincinnati, James C. Wilson lived in Santa Fe during the turbulent 1970s and wrote for the Santa Fe New Mexican and the Santa Fe Reporter. He has lived in Albuquerque since 2012. He is the author of twelve previous books, including Hiking New Mexico’s Chaco Canyon: The Trails, The Ruins, The History and Santa Fe, City of Refuge, An Improbable Memoir of the Counterculture in addition to Peyote Wolf, Smokescreen, Ghost Canyon and The Dead Go Fast in the Fernando Lopez Santa Fe Mystery Series.

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Hardcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-532-8
142 pp.,$32.95

Softcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-459-8
142 pp.,$22.95

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-689-8
142 pp.,$4.99

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A man in a wolf mask bursts into a teepee in the middle of a sacred ritual, a peyote ceremony, and kills Michael Soto, the owner of Sabado Indian Arts on the Santa Fe Plaza. The next morning Detective Fernando Lopez, a member of an old Santa Fe family, receives a complaint from two Zuni that an important tribal object, a carved wooden war god called an ahayu:da, has been stolen from their pueblo. They show him an anonymous letter sent to the Zuni Tribal Council saying that Michael Soto was trying to sell it for fifty thousand dollars. Shortly after they leave, the police dispatcher reports that Michael Soto has been murdered. Establishing what happened and who was present at the peyote ceremony proves difficult. One witness says three men and one woman from Whitewater near Zuni attended the ceremony. Another says it was four men from Whitewater. One witness blames a skinwalker or a werewolf for Michael Soto’s murder. Detective Lopez’s investigation exposes the cultural and ethnic fractures in Santa Fe, a city of Native American, Hispanic, and Anglo cultures. The investigation also leads into the dangerous underworld of buying and selling stolen Indian artifacts. Along the way he encounters looters and grave robbers, rich gallery owners who buy and sell priceless tribal objects on the black market, and artisans who produce fake replicas of the objects to sell. The search for answers comes to a startling end in a violent confrontation at a trading post just north of Zuni Pueblo, when the truth is finally revealed. Includes Readers Guide.

Emeritus Professor of English and Journalism at the University of Cincinnati, James C. Wilson lived in Santa Fe during the turbulent 1970s and wrote for the Santa Fe New Mexican and the Santa Fe Reporter. He has lived in Albuquerque since 2012. He is the author of seven previous books, including most recently Weather Reports from the Autism Front: A Father’s Memoir of his Autistic Son; Santa Fe, City of Refuge: An Improbable Memoir of the Counterculture; and Hiking New Mexico’s Chaco Canyon: The Trails, The Ruins, The History.

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Hardcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-423-9
176 pp.,$32.95

Softcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-307-2
176 pp.,$18.95

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-600-3
176 pp.,$3.99

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A prominent city councilmember, Tito Garcia, is assassinated at the beginning of the Santa Fe Fiesta. Known as a peacemaker, he had negotiated an agreement to ban a controversial Fiesta procession known as the Entrada. The procession celebrated the Reconquest of Santa Fe twelve years after the 1680 Pueblo Rebellion drove the Spanish out of Santa Fe. Both Spanish and Native American groups blame each other for Garcia’s murder and vow revenge. The situation explodes in violence when one Hispanic group attempts to march in downtown Santa Fe in violation of the agreement. Fernando Lopez is forced to rethink the case when he discovers Garcia’s involvement with Three-Hills Ranch, a compound suspected of sex-trafficking young women from border towns like Nogales and Juarez. The journey to find answers takes Lopez on a journey into the underbelly of wealthy Santa Fe society where deep cultural and ethnic conflicts have festered for over four hundred years. Smokescreen, the second in the Fernando Lopez Santa Fe Mystery Series, concludes in a fiery confrontation at Three-Hills Ranch, where the truth is finally revealed and justice served. Includes Reading Guide.

Emeritus Professor of English and Journalism at the University of Cincinnati, James C. Wilson lived in Santa Fe during the turbulent 1970s and wrote for the Santa Fe New Mexican and the Santa Fe Reporter. He has lived in Albuquerque since 2012. He is the author of eight previous books, including Hiking New Mexico’s Chaco Canyon: The Trails, The Ruins, The History (2019) and Peyote Wolf (2020), the first of the Fernando Lopez Santa Fe Mystery Series.

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Hardcover:
ISBN: 978-1-63293-401-7
174 pp.,$32.95

Softcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-315-7
174 pp.,$18.95

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-618-8
174 pp.,$3.99

The disappearance of a Santa Fe historian at the historic Mabel Dodge Luhan House in Taos sends private investigator Fernando Lopez on a dangerous journey through a haunted world of ghosts, transients, paranormals, and psychopaths.

When Santa Fe historian Kate Isaacs disappears while staying and doing research at the historic Mabel Dodge Luhan House in Taos, Isaacs’ wife hires private investigator Fernando Lopez to find the missing woman. At the Luhan House, now a bed and breakfast inn, Lopez learns that Isaacs walked out of her room during the night wearing only a nightgown and slippers. Employees and a local paranormal organization blame ghosts. They tell Lopez the sprawling hundred-year-old house is haunted by the ghosts of the famous people who stayed there, including Georgia O’Keeffe, Willa Cather, and Dennis Hopper, as well as Mabel and her Native American husband Tony. The mystery deepens when a former lover of Isaacs turns up dead at a party Isaacs attended the night she disappeared. Isaacs is a suspect in the murder until it becomes clear that she has been kidnapped. Lopez teams up with Taos County Sheriff Hank Mathews after kidnappers contact Isaacs’ wife and demand a ransom for her return. Their investigation leads them to a derelict A-frame in the mountains where they find Isaacs’ body and the bodies of two other people. Solving the murders takes them into a dangerous underworld of transients, paranormals and psychopaths. Includes Readers Guide.

Emeritus Professor of English and Journalism at the University of Cincinnati, James C. Wilson lived in Santa Fe during the turbulent 1970s and wrote for the Santa Fe New Mexican and the Santa Fe Reporter. He has lived in Albuquerque since 2012. He is the author of fourteen previous books, including Hiking New Mexico’s Chaco Canyon: The Trails, The Ruins, The History and Santa Fe, City of Refuge, An Improbable Memoir of the Counterculture in addition to Peyote Wolf, Smokescreen, Ghost Canyon, The Dead Go Fast, Painted Skull Ranch, Taos Vendetta and Devil on Canyon Road in the Fernando Lopez Santa Fe Mystery Series.

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Hardcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-617-2
148 pp.,$32.95

Softcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-546-5
148 pp.,$22.95

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-719-2
148 pp.,$4.99

The murder of a Hollywood actress sends private investigator Fernando Lopez to Taos, where he finds himself in a world of intrigue, caught between feuding ranchers and old legal grievances while searching for a murderer.

After a Hollywood actress is murdered at a Taos hotel, private investigator Fernando Lopez receives a call for help from Taos County Sheriff Hank Mathews, an old friend. In Taos Lopez learns the murdered woman, Anne Lewis, had been part of a movie crew filming a tacky ‘walking dead’ movie. Yesterday she’d returned to the hotel after filming at the Taos Historical Cemetery and gone for a swim in the hotel pool. Her body was found that morning with evidence indicating she had been forcibly drowned. Working with Sheriff Mathews, Lopez discovers that Lewis had a lot of enemies. Suspects include a jealous co-worker and Ted Fisher, the executive producer of the movie, who was being sued by Lewis and two other women for sexual assault. Fisher’s bodyguard threatens and later attacks Lopez in an effort to end the investigation and protect Fisher. Yet another suspect is Cowboy Jack Ryan, a young lothario who comes to the hotel bar every night looking for hookups with the various actresses. In fact, Cowboy Jack had slept with Lewis the night before the day she was murdered. Cowboy Jack complicates the investigation, because he’s part of an ongoing feud between two ranching families outside Taos, the Ryans and the Luceros. When Cowboy Jack shoots and kills the oldest Lucero son and then flees, he becomes the chief suspect in two murders. Lopez and Sheriff Mathews chase Cowboy Jack and his younger brother across northern New Mexico, finally cornering them at Ghost Ranch near Abiquiu. In the ensuing melee the murderer of Anne Lewis is finally revealed. Includes Readers Guide.

Emeritus Professor of English and Journalism at the University of Cincinnati, James C. Wilson lived in Santa Fe during the turbulent 1970s and wrote for the Santa Fe New Mexican and the Santa Fe Reporter. He has lived in Albuquerque since 2012. He is the author of fifteen previous books, including Hiking New Mexico’s Chaco Canyon: The Trails, The Ruins, The History; New Mexico’s Chaco Canyon, Photographing the Ancient City and Santa Fe, City of Refuge, An Improbable Memoir of the Counterculture in addition to Peyote Wolf, Smokescreen, Ghost Canyon, The Dead Go Fast, Painted Skull Ranch, Taos Gothic, and Devil on Canyon Road in the Fernando Lopez Santa Fe Mystery Series.

On the Cover: Cover art by Virginia Maria Romero over photograph by the author of the Taos Mountains from the Sagebrush Inn, Taos, New Mexico.

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Softcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-548-9
140 pp.,$19.95

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-720-8
140 pp.,$4.99