The Last of Our Kind

Don Carlos Buenaventura, the protagonist of "The Last of Our Kind," is a powerful brujo living in Santa Fe, New Mexico, a remote settlement on the edge of Spain''s North American empire. The year is 1706. Comanche war parties are boldly conducting raids nearby, French traders and soldiers are aggressively expanding toward New Mexico from the Great Plains, and agents of the Spanish Inquisition have arrived in search of a brujo suspected of being in Santa Fe. That brujo is Don Carlos, respected citizen under the name of Don Alfonso Cabeza de Vaca, his true identity known only to a small coterie of friends. Given the many dangers that threaten the town, will he be able to bring his powers to bear and still keep his brujo identity secret? When his mortal enemy, a sorcerer with formidable powers, arrives on the scene in the midst of these troubles, how will Don Carlos figure out a way to deal with him? Includes Readers Guide. * * * A native Californian, Gerald W. McFarland received his B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley and his doctorate in U.S. history from Columbia University. He taught at the University of Massachusetts Amherst for forty-four years. During that time he published four books in his field. He received many honors, including a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship. The Colonial Dames of America cited his book, "A Scattered People: An American Family Moves West," as one of the three best books in American history published in 1985. Since his retirement, he has turned to writing fiction and is the author of two previous novels in the Buenaventura Series, "The Brujo''s Way" and "What the Owl Saw." He and his wife live in rural Western Massachusetts.