Review by Booklist Review
Vicki Holden, an Arapaho attorney, has returned to the Wind River Reservation; tribal elders want her to find a nineteenth-century Arapaho warrior's ledger book, used to chronicle tribal life. Meanwhile, Father John O'Malley is lobbying a tightfisted church hierarchy for a reservation museum. Holden and O'Malley join forces when a young Arapaho scholar, involved in both projects, goes missing; they race to find the scholar to protect him, the ledger, and tribal culture. Coel's fourth mystery has vivid western landscapes, intriguing history, compelling characters, and quick, tight writing that is a joy to read. The mystery looks easy, but Coel offers many twists and surprises. The obvious comparison would be Tony Hillerman's Navajo police procedurals, but Coel has her own voice and point of view. O'Malley continues to suggest Morse, and Holden is a unique mix of the modern and the traditional. The two prove delightful and sympathetic, as they suffer an endearing confusion about whether they are friends or something more. One of the best of the year. --John Rowen
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Arapaho attorney Vicky Holden and reservation priest John O'Malley return in their taut fourth adventure (after The Dream Stalker, 1997). This time, they pursue those who will kill to find the missing "ledger book," a record in pictograph of Arapaho presence at an Army massacre of Indians in Colorado. Shortly after the tribe hires Holden to learn why the book apparently disappeared from a Denver museum collection, police find the body of an Arapaho graduate student, Todd Harris. To homicide detectives, Todd's murder looks like a soured drug deal. But Holden, knowing that the student was researching the subject of the ledger book, is convinced that the murder is connected to the book's disappearance. Father John, in Denver to comfort Harris's family, joins Holden in her search for the book. When two friends of Harris are murdered and the house where Holden stays is ransacked, the lawyer and the priest know that their own lives are in danger. All the strengths of this fine series are present here: Coel's knowledge of and respect for western history, a solid mystery with a credible premise in Indian lore and the struggles of Holden and O'Malley with their powerful, but so far unconsummated, attraction to each other. (Oct.) FYI: Berkley Prime Crime will simultaneously publish The Dream Stalker in paper. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Arapaho attorney Vicky Holden (The Dream Stalker, LJ 9/1/97) and friend Father O'Malley attempt to recover a priceless Arapaho ledger stolen from a museum that claims never to have had it. Murder subsequently claims an Arapaho student interested in the ledger. Another splendid mix of mystery and Native American culture. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by School Library Journal Review
YA-Native American lawyer Vicky Holden is asked to look into the whereabouts of an Arapaho warrior's valuable ledger book that was last seen at the Denver Museum of the West in 1920. When the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act was passed by Congress, it allowed tribes to recover sacred artifacts held in museums. The old ledger was not on the inventory list sent to the tribe by the museum and Vicky goes to Denver to find it. First, a young tribal ethnohistorian is murdered and then other students at the university are found dead. Vicky and Father John O'Malley, the Jesuit priest at the Arapaho Mission, hunt for the book even though several faculty members deny its existence. Their quest eventually leads them to an isolated ranch in the plains of eastern Colorado where an Indian massacre took place in 1866. The presence of the Arapaho warriors at the massacre is disputed by the Cheyenne. The elderly ranch resident gives them evidence of the Arapaho ledger book with its firsthand account of the event. Here they find the clues that lead them to the killer. This is an exciting story that introduces a part of American history about which little is known.-Penny Stevens, Centreville Regional Library, Fairfax, VA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
The Story Teller ($21.95; Oct. 1; 256 pp.; 0-425-16538-8): The disappearance of an irreplaceable, historic, and deadly Arapaho ledger book from a museum whose staffers claim it was never in their collection: a fourth case for attorney Vicky Holden and her barely platonic friend Father John O'Malley (The Dream Stalker, 1997, etc.).
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
