Nightwing (novel)



Nightwing is a 1977 thriller novel by Martin Cruz Smith, who adapted it for a 1979 film with the same title directed by Arthur Hiller.

Plot summary
A disgruntled, disenfranchised Hopi shaman sets out to "end the world" by way of a ritual invocation of the Hopi god of death. Shortly after his mutilated corpse is discovered by a skeptical Tewa deputy the body count begins to rise as more strangely slashed and bloodied victims are found.

The book has many elements: part love triangle; part Native American case study; part supernatural thriller. It was the author's own tribal ancestry which inspired the writing of this fictionalized anthropological mini-survey.