October, 2002

What can be done about the destruction of the Tibetan people? Violence seems to inexplicably perpetuate itself, and yet our passivity allows the destruction to continue. In Bone Mountain (St. Martin's Minotaur, 9/02) Eliot Pattison, spiritual mystery writer, offers a healing choice beyond either action or passivity: looking for healing miracles in current events.

In Pattison's hands, the horror and cruelty of greed and oppression are seen as an illness. As we observe the workings of medicine lamas encountered in a visionary journey along an ancient salt caravan route, we discover the power within the land and all of its people to heal themselves from without and within.

Bone Mountain, the third in a series of award -winning mysteries, features an intricate plot that blends the political with the spiritual. When former Bejing police investigator Shan, is asked to restore a Tibetan spiritual artifact to its place deep in the mountains. He soon discovers that he cannot accomplish his goal without also preserving the ancient ways of healing and stopping foreign oil drilling from destroying a pristine valley. The old Tibetans who animate the story with their magical energy, work with Shan for a "cure" which shows compassion for the most brutal and devastating crimes. If the land can be healed, the government co-opted monks, sadistic military leaders, Tibetan revolutionaries and outcasts like Shan can begin to find healing as well.

The author, Eliot Pattison, veteran of 15 trips to the lands of modern China weaves the facts of the Chinese government's systematic destruction into the details of lived experience.

Interviews with the author might discuss:

• How a quest for justice may ultimately be about healing ourselves and the earth.
• How ancient traditions of healing and compassion can sometimes overcome brutality and even hatred
• How the forces of the global economy encroaches on traditional cultures and creates conflicts in regions like Tibet, Central Asia and the Middle East
• How Tibet has become the most vivid symbol of the dynamics that have defined the past century: spiritualism vs. materialism, human rights vs. monolithic government, ethnic culture vs the faceless global culture.