The Ghost Walker (Wind River Reservation Series #2)
Father John O'Malley comes across the corpse lying in a ditch beside the highway. When he returns with the police, it is gone. The Arapahos of the Wind River Reservation speak of Ghost Walkers—tormented souls caught between the earth and the spirit world, who are capable of anything.\ Then, within days, a young man disappears from the Reservation without a trace. A young woman is found brutally murdered. And as Father John and Arapaho lawyer Vicky Holden investigate these crimes, someone—or...
Search in google:
If the St. Francis Mission had been able to afford repairs on its aging truck, Father John wouldn't have found himself stranded on an isolated road in the middle of a snowstorm. And he wouldn't have seen the lifeless body wrapped in a tarp and thrown into a ditch. When he returns with the police, the corpse has vanished. To the Arapahos, this is no ordinary corpse. It is a ghost walker, a tormented soul caught between the earth and the spirit world, capable of anything...But Father John doesn't believe a ghost is behind the sudden disappearance of Marcus Deppert, a convicted drug dealer. Nor is a ghost responsible for the merciless murder of the young man's ex-girlfriend. Despite his own troubles - his beloved St. Francis Mission is about to be sold to outside interests with major development plans - Father John can't forget the lonely body in the ditch. Fearing it was Marcus, he is determined to find out what happened to the young man. But as he starts to follow Marcus's trail, he realizes someone is following him... And he suspects that Susan Holden, Vicky's rebellious drug-addicted daughter, could be involved in murder - and could be the next intended victim. To protect the daughter she lost years before and has only just found, Vicky is willing to pay any price - even that of her own life. Their friendship is tested as Vicky and Father John each draw upon the ancient traditions of the Arapaho to stop a killer, explain the inexplicable, and put a ghost to rest.Publishers WeeklyIn this second well-crafted adventure (after The Eagle Catcher), Father John O'Malley discovers a body dumped in a frozen ditch near his small church on the Arapaho reservation in Wyoming. His own truck disabled, Father John gets a ride from an edgy, evasive stranger. When police arrive at the snow-covered roadside, the body has vanished. The Arapahos say the ghost is walking around somewhere, causing trouble until the body is properly buried and the spirit can rest. Sure enough, Marcus Deppert, a troubled young Indian, disappears. His former girlfriend is murdered. Father John learns that the nervous stranger is living with two other men and the drug-using daughter of Vicky Holden, a lawyer and Father John's good friend. Worst of all for the priest, his superiors decide to sell the small reservation church to a shadowy investment group. Against a wintertime Wyoming to chill the bones, Coel skillfully meshes her story lines, offering a host of fine characters: the recovering alcoholic priest whose Jesuit logic often yields to his own weaknesses; his aged, Shakespeare-quoting mentor; and an Arapaho professional woman caught between white and Indian worlds. (Oct.)
\ Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly\ In this second well-crafted adventure (after The Eagle Catcher), Father John O'Malley discovers a body dumped in a frozen ditch near his small church on the Arapaho reservation in Wyoming. His own truck disabled, Father John gets a ride from an edgy, evasive stranger. When police arrive at the snow-covered roadside, the body has vanished. The Arapahos say the ghost is walking around somewhere, causing trouble until the body is properly buried and the spirit can rest. Sure enough, Marcus Deppert, a troubled young Indian, disappears. His former girlfriend is murdered. Father John learns that the nervous stranger is living with two other men and the drug-using daughter of Vicky Holden, a lawyer and Father John's good friend. Worst of all for the priest, his superiors decide to sell the small reservation church to a shadowy investment group. Against a wintertime Wyoming to chill the bones, Coel skillfully meshes her story lines, offering a host of fine characters: the recovering alcoholic priest whose Jesuit logic often yields to his own weaknesses; his aged, Shakespeare-quoting mentor; and an Arapaho professional woman caught between white and Indian worlds. (Oct.)\ \ \ \ \ Library JournalCoel, known as an accomplished writer of nonfiction, has recently begun a mystery series set on the Wind River Indian Reservation in central Wyoming. The Ghost Walker is the second book in this series (see The Eagle Catcher, Audio Reviews, LJ 6/1/98), which features Father John OMalley, a priest who administers the Jesuit mission on the reservation. In a Wyoming blizzard, OMalleys ancient Toyota breaks down, and, in going for help, he finds a snow-covered body in the ditch along the road. By the time he makes it back with the police, the body has disappeared, seemingly to become a ghost walkerto the Arapahos, a spirit causing mischief while searching for the path to the Sky World. As further elements of the mystery are introduced, Coel draws a picture of reservation life with skill and sensitivity. While she will no doubt be continually compared with the great Tony Hillerman, she holds her own very well. The audio package and its reading by Stephanie Brush are perhaps less polished than those offered by the major audiobook producers, but the listening experience is nevertheless very enjoyable. Highly recommended for mystery collections.Kristen L. Smith, Loras Coll. Lib., Dubuque, IA\ \ \ Kirkus ReviewsA veteran writer of nonfiction on the West, Coel introduced Father John O'Malley previously in The Eagle Catcher (1995); here, in the second of what may become a series, another mystery is engagingly constructed around the professional (and personal) trials of O'Malley, leader of the St. Francis Mission to the Wind River Indian Reservation in winter-blasted Wyoming. This time there's enough violence, addiction, and incipient romance to keep more than one spiritual advisor on military alert. Father John discovers and then loses track of a body in a ditch. Subsequently, a business cartel threatens to close the Mission; the daughter of the tribal lawyer—a lovely "woman alone" and proven ally named Vicky Holden—comes home with a drug habit in the company of strange men; and two jobless braves go missing. Not to mention that the clerical Toyota pickup is blindsided. Father John is a recovering alcoholic; he prevails one day at a time, emptying a whiskey bottle into the Wind River, locating the murderer, and even finding a way to fund Arapaho basketball.\ Coel's inoffensive series (or series-to-be) in the Hillerman tradition finds a space where Jesuits and Native Americans can meet in a culture of common decency. The stories could benefit from a less polite tone and less attention to the minutiae of food, clothing, and—in this case, cold—weather.\ \ \
