Synopsis
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 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.)