COYOTE BLUE

Lust proves the catalyst that reconnects a hotshot insurance salesman with his buried Indian past, and with a spirit guide he'd prefer to avoid: a fast-paced and funny, if somewhat fragmented, follow-up to Moore's Practical Demonkeeping (1992). Sam Hunter, formerly Samson Hunts Alone of the Crow reservation in Montana, left home in a hurry as a teenager after throwing a cop over a dam, established himself successfully in L.A. as an unflappably congenial insurance hustler, only to have his past catch up with him 20 years later when he stops to gawk at a gorgeous, leggy blond on his way to an appointment. A mysterious Indian appears in his life at the same time, and within 24 hours Sam has lost his job, his condo, and his equilibrium. The blond, Calliope, leaves him hopelessly in love after a first date, while the Indian, by changing into a coyote, a raven, a mosquito, and other shapes, is revealed as none other than the Trickster, Old Man Coyote of Indian legend. Having appeared to Sam as a boy on his first vision-quest, Coyote now wants to put the grown man's successful but empty life in order, but when Sam begs for a return to normalcy, Coyote complies—and Calliope vanishes. The two follow her to Las Vegas, where Coyote gambles away all of Sam's money and his car, but they team up with her in traveling to South Dakota to rescue her son, abducted by her crazed biker ex-husband. In a getaway with the boy, Calliope is killed—but when Coyote later makes the ultimate sacrifice in Crow Country, she magically revives for the sappiest of happy endings. Lively and loopy, and certainly imaginative, but the conventional underpinnings offer little support for frequent flights of fantasy, yielding an entertaining but hollow romantic adventure. (First printing of 50,000)