I revisited Nightwing after a conversation with a friend about some of Martin Cruz Smith’s other books. I first read Nightwing in high school, just after its release and before Marin had the success of Gorky Park. I didn’t remember much beyond the burnished orange voer cover, the Southwest U.S. setting, and my struggle to understand the main character’s motivations (was he a good guy or a bad guy?) or the book’s hallucinatory elements.

Having re-read it, I appreciate it more, especially for its vivid desert setting and the depth of the main character’s motivation.

Youngman Duran, the Indigenous deputy sheriff of a Hopi reservation in Arizona, investigates a deadly infestation of vampire bats. The story is more Jaws than Dracula, blending mysticism, Indigenous culture, and ecological disaster as the bats, carriers of the bubonic plague, migrate steadily into the U.S. While I can’t speak to the accuracy of the depiction of life on the Hopi reservation, I’m aware that Smith is part Indigenous, and the portrayal feels authentic.

The book leans heavily on Duran, a wonderfully complex character—a solitary alcoholic who rises to the challenge of stopping the bats. The novel's hallucinatory quality comes from Duran’s use of peyote, which connects him to Abner, a shaman who dies early in the story, and to Darata, an ancient Hopi prophecy foretelling the world’s end due to an imbalance between nature and humanity.

I enjoyed the book immensely and didn’t find it dated—two thumbs up to a novel by a favourite author early in his career.