A Rick Sage Mystery: Harley-riding PI, Rick Sage, follows his heart into darkness once again when he meets up with ten-year-old Pedro, a Mexican-American kid lost on the streets of Tijuana. Pedro hires Rick, with the two dollars and thirty-five cents he has left in his pocket, to find the gang of antiquities thieves who murdered his parents. Shadowed by a jaguar spirit Rick begins to believe is real, his promise to help the boy takes them on a trail leading from Tijuana to the Copper Canyon, then on to Mexico's Mayan ruins at Palenque, and down a jungle border river into Guatemala. Along the way, Rick and Pedro join up with a beautiful but mysterious redheaded nun, and a magical, fleet-footed Tarahumara shaman. Haunted by his own tragic childhood, Rick is determined to fulfill his promise to Pedro to find the murderers and recover the Jade Death Mask of the Jaguar Cult, as they are drawn deeper and deeper into a dark plot lit only by the beacons of a jaguar's eyes.

Set in the heart of the American jungle and featuring Declan Carberry, the not-so handsome hero of Day of Wrath, this page-turner oozes excitement, exotica and Formula One suspense.

Drawing on secondary works in archaeology, art history, folklore, ethnohistory, ethnography, and literature, the authors maintain that the mask is the central metaphor for the Mesoamerican concept of spiritual reality. Covers the long history of the use of the ritual mask by the peoples who created and developed the mythological tradition of Mesoamerica. Chapters: (1) the metaphor of the mask in Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica: the mask as the God, in ritual, and as metaphor; (II) metaphoric reflections of the cosmic order; and (III) the metaphor of the mask after the conquest: syncretism; the Pre-Columbian survivals; the syncretic compromise; and today's masks. Over 100 color and black-&-white photos.

Lynn V. Andrews takes the reader with her as she goes on inward journeys with the help of the Sisterhood of the Shields, and relates the stories of others. Join her as she is initiated into the Sisterhood and creates her own shield, which will show her the nature of her spiritual path (Spirit Woman). Follow her to the Yucatan, where the medicine wheel leads her, and she is faced with the terrifying reality of the butterfly tree (Jaguar Woman). Enter the Dreamtime with her, where she emerges in medieval England as Catherine, and encounters the Grandmother, who offers to show Andrews how to make her life one of goodness, power, adventure, and love (The Woman of Wyrrd). Not all these stories describe the author's own spiritual experiences. Meet Sin Corazón, an initiate into the Sisterhood, whose husband abandons her. She nearly succumbs to her inner dark power and unleashes her rage on men and the Sisterhood (Dark Sister). Andrews also writes about the elder women of the Sisterhood: their loves, their lives, their losses (Tree of Dreams). Andrews shows us how to channel our own spiritual and intellectual energy and balance the need for love with the desire for power (Love and Power). She takes the reader on numerous spiritual journeys that inevitably uplift.

When a sudden rainstorm disrupts an archeological dig at a remote Mayan site, site supervisor Deborah Miller makes an astonishing discovery: a collection of rubies so precious that generations of men have died -- and killed -- to possess them. Some believe the jewels harbor occult power; others believe they are the key to the arms race; still others see merely their potential for profit. But Deborah doesn't want power or money -- she only wants the truth. And so she sets out to trace the stones' complex history across four centuries and two continents, from Mexico to northern England, where the rubies once played a harrowing role in the Lancashire witch trials of 1612. But she is not the only one obsessed with the jewels; close on her heels is a notorious arms dealer who will stop at nothing, not even murder, to claim the prize for himself.

This is a state-by-state guide for collectors and general folk art enthusiasts to learn about the types of masked dances still carried out in Mexico's Indian and mestizo communities today. Close to one hundred color photographs of authenticated masks from the collection of the Museum of International Folk Art are presented, including finely carved pieces from the nineteenth century to simple face coverings made in the past ten years. The masked ceremonies are brought to life with documentary photographs showing masqueraders acting out their roles. --Amazon.