Dead of Night
Charlie Morell finds
himself once again facing a landscape of unrelenting evil cloaked in the
mesmerizing rituals of the Afro-Cuban religions santerÌa and palo mayombè,
which summon ancient spiritual powers to the service of its modern-day
practitioners. Morell becomes entrapped in the maw of the occult when
he promises an old friend of his recently deceased mother that he will
march for her missing godson.
Morell soon discovers
that the godson, Ricardo DÌaz, is a priest of palo mayombè who
heads a black-magic cult that conducts gruesome ceremonies of torture
and human sacrifice. Galvanized by the unspeakable depravities of DÌaz
and his followers, and by the horrific murder of a close friend, a good-hearted
priest of santerÌa, Morell sets out after his quarry.
But DÌaz proves
to be more elusive and diabolical than anyone imagines, and Morell's pursuit
takes him from the mansions and cemeteries of Miami to the scorched hinterlands
of Baja California and the seamy barrios of Los Angeles. As he cleaves
to the killer's trail, Morell realizes he is both hunter and hunted, tracker
and prey. In a precipitous and unexpected ending, with the lives of those
he loves the most hanging in the balance, he sees that salvation will
be found only in his own tortured past. |
