Shadow Prey by John Sanford revolves around the relationship between the Indian community and the general population. A series of brutal murders are being committed by different Indians in the United States during Kennedy's presidential term.

The crimes initially appear to only have a connection because they are committed by Indians and all the victims throats are slit with an obsidian knife. The police are puzzled because serial murders are typically committed by one person. Also, the people being killed appear to have little in common with one another.

The first victim is a lowly slum lord, then a local politician and finally, the killings escalate to high ranking officials. When a famous politician from NY is murdered, his wealthy family provides the investigators with money, media, and help from a special detective named Lillian Rothenburg, who is from NYPD.

The existing detectives, including the main character, Lucas Davenport, face a great deal of pressure to solve the case. Lucas hunts for the motivation behind the seemingly-unrelated murders and theorizes with his colleagues that the murders have a deeper purpose than just the death of someone who has mistreated the Indians in some manner.

The masterminds behind the killings are two older Indian men called the Crows who are considered radical spiritualists by their own community. Their goal is to attract the attention of the director of the FBI, Lawrence Duberville Clay, who has committed horrible atrocities against the Indian community, including raping young Indian girls when he was a young police officer.

As Clay's social and political status has risen, he has taken every opportunity to beat down the Indian's using his clout. They plan to kill him in Minneapolis, hopefully when he is away from his vast numbers of security guards, and expose the evil, perverted person that lies beneath the polished, political veneer.

Shadow Love, the Crow's son, creates multiple obstacles in the path of both the Crows and the police. He kills two Sioux who he feels are traitors to the Indian community because they helped the police. This act displeases the Crows because they had never considered killing their own people. Shadow Love's choice of Indian victims confuses the police and distracts them from figuring out the Crow's true purpose sooner.

Lucas tells Daniel he thinks the motive behind the killings is to get Clay to come to Minneapolis, but Daniel thinks that can not be the real reason for so many deaths. The Crows are shot many times outside Drake's house where they kill Clay; however, they knew that their death was a possibility and feel that their message will be carried on after their deaths, which their friend Leo plans to do by turning then into a legend. Sadly, the highly-public death of the political officials and of the Indians is probably the only way the media and the world could/would get their message and perhaps remember the event.