The Thunder Keeper (Wind River Reservation Mystery) - Hardcover

Coel, Margaret

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 042518188X ISBN 13: 9780425181881

Publisher: Berkley Hardcover, 2001

Synopsis

While investigating a supposed suicide of a young Arapaho on the Wind River Reservation and a hit-and-run accident in Denver, Arapaho attorney Vicky Holden and Father John O'Malley discover that both of the deaths may have been murders and set out to expose the dark secrets over which someone is willing to kill.

About this title

About the Author

Margaret Coel is the New York Times bestselling, award-winning author of The Thunder Keeper, The Spirit Woman, The Lost Bird, The Story Teller, The Dream Stalker, The Ghost Walker, The Eagle Catcher, and several works of nonfiction. She has also authored many articles on the people and places of the American West. Her work has won national and regional awards. Her first John O'Malley mystery, The Eagle Catcher, was a national bestseller, garnering excellent reviews from the Denver Post, Tony Hillerman, Jean Hager, Loren D. Estleman, Stephen White, Earlene Fowler, Ann Ripley and other top writers in the field. A native of Colorado, she resides in Boulder.

Reviews

In her seventh mystery set among the Arapahos of Wyoming's Wind River Reservation featuring her twin sleuths, Father John O'Malley (on the rez) and Arapaho lawyer Vicky Holden (temporarily transplanted to Denver), Coel gets the atmosphere just right. Every physical detail of the "vision quest" that a desperate young man named Duncan Grover undertakes on a cliff above Bear Lake seems perfect, while the challenges of Vicky's new life as a high-profile attorney are equally sharp. But the actual story here is the problem: it seems to be made up of recycled plot elements from several other recent Western mysteries. Grover's murder, made to look like a suicide, and only uncovered when Father John hears the details in a confession; the heavy-breathing corporate villains seeking to exploit the Native Americans and plunder their riches (not oil or gold this time, but diamonds); the insensitive white cops who just don't get it surely we've covered this ground before. Too bad, because when Coel writes about Father John's tricky relationship with Vicky (echoed in a lawsuit filed by a frustrated woman against his new assistant), or Vicky's edgy moments with the husband and children she left behind, she is on original and interesting ground. The author's previous books have been justly praised by the likes of Tony Hillerman, but an overly familiar plot this time out could lead to bad word-of-mouth and a falling off in sales.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Berkley Hardcover
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 042518188X
• ISBN 13: 9780425181881
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256