Hungry Ghost

Just because Elliot Shapiro, former NSA analyst, had been a long-time practicing Buddhist, it didn’t make him perfect. Just because he and his business partner, Elena Ranero, the daughter of the Governor of the Cochiti Pueblo, had resolved a critical linkage in the lineage of the Dalai Lamas, didn’t mean that their new investigative service was being overrun with requests to solve other Tibetan Buddhist mysteries. It also didn’t mean that Elliot Shapiro was as culturally sensitive as one would seemingly need to be living and working in Santa Fe, NM, where acculturation meant co-existing with the Native American, Hispanic, Anglo and scientific communities.

None the less, when an invaluable Ming Dynasty painting from the ancient Water/Land Ritual is stolen from Tibet House, a locus for Santa Fe’s large Tibetan population, Elliot Shapiro and Elena Ranero are brought in to investigate the disappearance. It is soon revealed that this painting, which had been donated by a wealthy local businessman, was the key to more than just the story told on the painting’s surface.