We're told that John's powers come from his grandfather teaching him the "ancient ways." These ancient ways are never explained, because all the research Morrissey did for this book was through Pinterest's "vague platitudes" tag. At one point, John convinces a U.S. marshal to help him by insisting that he's a patriot who wants to keep the spirit of the American Revolution alive, because his Mohawk ancestors fought in the Revolutionary War. (The Mohawk fought for the British to defend their land from "patriots.")

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In other totally real Native American attributes, John has "the spirit of the snake in his bloodline and that gave him power over some people and many snakes." We never find out what that means, and immediately after being introduced to his power over many snakes, John talks to some coyotes (the number of legs they have is unspecified). Coyote chat allows John to discover a dead body and a Mexican-Arab-Obama conspiracy. That's right, President Obama. Gasp!

Tom Morrissey Prose Appreciation Break, Writing Realistic Native American Characters Edition!

-- "We are Native Americans, we sit on mother earth for anything we need." [Note: This is said in response to someone objecting to sitting next to seven corpses.]

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-- "DC ... John Gode ... DC ... the land of the Redskins." That was Sunday's way of making a joke in a serious situation by bringing up the politically-correct silliness over the name of that team.

-- John made a ghost move, evading the thrust.

The Writing Shows A Shocking Lack Of Faith In Its Audience

John's investigation involves chases, shootouts, interrogations, and other theoretically dramatic moments that are written with all the passion of a bank statement, but every scenario plays out the same way. John gets a "gut feeling" about what's happening and what should be done. The other Shadow Wolves either agree with his plan or eventually fall in line after it's explained that John's gut is always right, so he never has to explain his logic. John has so many gut feelings that he should look into what is clearly the early stages of stomach cancer. At one point, his gut helps him resolve a hostage situation, and the chapter smugly ends with "All lives matter. Do they not?" Real sick burn on America's growing pro-hostage-murder movement, Morrissey.