The Lost Bird

The Lost Bird

The murder of his elderly assistant propels reservation priest Father John O'Malley into a partnership with Arapaho lawyer Vicky Holden, and together they set out to hunt down the killer. In the tradition of Tony Hillerman and Jean Hager, Coel sets her heartwarming mystery series (The Ghost Walker) on the Wind River Arapaho Reservation in Wyoming and peoples it with caring but troubled and endearing characters. Father John O'Malley of St. Francis Mission has a few skeletons in his closet; a recovering alcoholic who experienced a passionate love for his high school sweetheart, Ellen, back in Boston, he now worries about the attraction he and Arapaho attorney Vicky Holden feel for each other. Vicky's feelings for Father John become unmistakable when Father Joseph Keenan, the elderly philosopher-priest assigned to St. Francis, is found murdered by a bullet obviously intended for Father John. Simultaneously, she must grapple with the arrival of Sharon David, a movie star convinced that she was adopted at birth from the reservation. For fans of Western mysteries, this is a sure bet. Recommended.ASusan A. Zappia, Maricopa Cty. Lib. Dist., Phoenix Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. Sharon David, a Native American actress, arrives on the Arapaho Wind River Reservation in Wyoming determined to find her biological parents. She hires attorney Vicki Holden to help her do so. Meanwhile, Father Joseph Keenan, assistant to Father John O'Malley, is killed while driving Father John's car. Determined to find the murderer, Father John launches an investigation, eventually joining forces with Holden when a link between the actress and Father Joseph is established. Coel's latest is among the best mysteries of the year. Coel has a rare gift for portraying engaging, realistic characters, devising a difficult puzzle, and pacing everything at a brisk, nail-biting canter. She writes vividly about western landscapes and Native American customs, and best of all, she gives her characters--representing different worldviews--plenty of room to play off one another as they stumble toward the truth. Holden, in particular, has developed into a much more complex and satisfying individual, balancing Native American and white cultures with earnestness and dry humor. Coel is clearly at the top of her game. John Rowen It's an awful moment for Arapaho lawyer Vicky Holden as the fifth in this Hillermanesque series (The Story Teller, 1998, etc.) gets underway. According to a radio bulletin, a priest from Wyoming's St. Francis Mission to the Wind River Indian Reservation has been shot to death. Vicky (nee Singing Bird) is certain the victim is Father John O'Malley, the mission pastor, with whom she's secretly but desperately in love. (He's secretly desperate, too.) Turns out, to her immense relief, that 70-ish Father Joseph, not hunkish Father John, was driving the mission pick-up. At first, Vickylike everyone else, including Father Johnassumes death by mistaken identity. He must have been the intended target, Father Joseph simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. After all, Father Joseph had been at the mission a bare three weeks. Who could have worked up enough murderous hate for him in that short a period? But when Vicky learns that 35 years ago Father Joseph did a previous mission stint, she's forced to rethink. Mysterious things happened thenan inexplicable rise in Native American infant mortality, a couple of suspicious suicidesthat seem connected to the mysterious things happening now. Vicky and Father John conduct separate but equal investigations. In the end, of course, rampaging villainy is brought to justice, and rambunctious passion kept in check. Tune in next time. Father O'Malley and Vicky hold their own as characters, but the mystery itself lacks substance, and Coel really needs to polish her action scenes. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. Father John Aloysius O'Malley is a Jesuit priest on an Arapaho reservation. John had wanted to teach college or University but after falling to alcohol and recovering he found it impossible to find an institution that wanted him. That is how he ended up on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming trying to redeem himself. Helping him out for the last two weeks is Father Joseph Keenan, who should be retired (he is seventy-two with a serious heart condition) but who has instead returned to the reservation where he had been a pastor in the 1960s. The mission gets a phone call that someone is dying and needs the last rites performed. Joseph takes John's truck and heads out to the house even though John argues that he should take the call and allow the older man to rest. Joseph is shot getting out of the truck. Was he the intended victim or John? Vicky Holden is a lawyer who, as well as trying to help figure out this mystery, is trying to help the popular movie star Sharon David to find her parents. Sharon was adopted and thinks that, although she has light s