The Familiar Spirit

The Cunning Man, Book 3

A new novel in the Cunning Man series from Dragon Award–winning author D. J. Butler and Aaron Michael Ritchey.

Cunning man Hiram Woolley and his son Michael carry an itinerant preacher across the border into Mexico. Hiram is haunted by the specter of a bloody-faced man that stalks him in his dreams, but also by doubts about what lies ahead in the Mormon colonies around Nuevo Casas Grandes—this is the country Hiram's father fled to when he abandoned young Hiram and his mother.

In the colonies, Hiram and Michael are dragged into investigating an impossible murder. They track the killer across a land haunted by robbers, by its history of oppression and revolution, by ancient conflict and modern racial strife, and by the insanity that flows from loneliness and exile. They battle bandits and also an elusive ghostmaster who blights the land with the spirits of the uneasy dead.

But before the killer can be brought to justice, Hiram will learn that the most haunting thing of all is family.

©2025 D. J. Butler and Aaron Michael Ritchey (P)2025 Tantor Media

A fantastic third volume in the series

I really enjoyed this story. I hope there will be more of them in the future. The world Butler created is full of interesting characters.