The Lady of the Lantern

Panama Canal Zone Police Detective Dan Casey, a product of Irish immigrant parents, must solve a series of murders. A shooting, stabbing or beating would have been a piece of cake for a rookie. A gruesome crime committed by a four hundred year old woman, feared by the locals, is not a case he welcomes.
Claw marks on the throat of the first victim leads everyone to believe it was a large jungle cat. Casey and his friend Lou know better. Large black jaguars don't take seven hundred mile trips north to stalk their prey.
When under stress, Casey often consults a leprechaun figurine given to him by his mother. He doesn't believe in spirits, phantoms, or ghosts, and has no intention to start now, but he needs help. His Panamanian wife, Alisa, points him in the right direction. A sorceress, who practices a Caribbean offshoot of Obeah, a type of voodoo, may help him.