Mason Winfield

Author:
Author, teacher, storyteller, and supernatural historian Mason Winfield studied English and Classics at Denison University, earned a master’s degree in British literature at Boston College, and studied poetry and fiction at SUNY Buffalo with professor emeritus and MacArthur grant recipient Irving Feldman. He has written or edited fourteen books, including the regional sensation “Shadows of the Western Door” (1997) and “Iroquois Supernatural,” co-authored with Michael Bastine, on the traditions of the Six Longhouse Nations (Inner Traditions International/Bear & Company, 2011). Several of his surveys of upstate folklore and paranormal tradition may be found at the website of Western New York Wares: www.buffalobooks.com. He may be reached at www.masonwinfield.com.

An anatomically perfect human jaw fashioned of diamond-hard quartz crystal is uncovered at an Ohio burial mound and sold on the underground antiquities market. Shortly after, three pothunters are found dead.

A mysterious new drug suspected of South American origin surfaces in Buffalo, NY. Its unprecedented psycho-tropic effects include the momentary activation of ESP. 

Blind, speechless, emaciated street people start appearing in many parts of the world. An urban legend-cycle forms around them, and the name of a murderous old cult, “the Whistlers” attaches to them.

An archaeological team at a Mayan site reports finding a bizarre artifact and vanishes. 

An upstate schoolteacher’s book of New York legends and folklore foreshadows these developments and more. 

   These are the threads – plus his affair with a maddening woman – that draw narrator Ward Courier into the international adventure of occultism, terror, Native American tradition and onrushing prophecy that is Mason Winfield’s anticipated new novel THE WHISTLERS. By the time the picture of THE WHISTLERS becomes clear, we are ready to believe in a sinister conspiracy that could predate Atlantis and even hail from another world.

The Whistlers

Mexican Federal Highway 85, North of CIUDAD VICTORIA, TAMAULIPAS PROVINCE, MEXICO


The charcoal-grey Humvee speeds along a highway through flat territory. A range of mountains rises in the distance.


Jason Jonas speaks. "You know, they say a young jazz musician was going through some hard times. He was a real good, natural musician who was working in a band. He was ear-trained, and everybody was trying to get him to go to school and learn how to read music. He came up to Louis Armstrong and said, 'Do I really have to learn to read music?'


"Armstrong takes a look at him and says, 'You play that horn?'


"'You take that horn,' says Armstrong. 'You play that note.'


"Kid does. 'Toot!' (Jonas comically and quickly fakes the sound of a horn-bleat.)


"'Sounds good,' says Armstrong. 'Play it again.'"


Chapter 38: An Arabesque of Motley, Part 38