The Story Teller (A Wind River Reservation Myste) [Paperback]

Margaret Coel (Author)

Book Description

Series: A Wind River Reservation Myste | Publication Date: September 1, 1999

Praised for her vivid characterizations and unique blend of mystery and Indian lore, Margaret Coel has gifted her readers with a glimpse into the law, ethics, and culture of the Arapaho people. Now in The Story Teller she brings back Arapaho attorney Vicky Holden and confidante Father John O'Malley to reclaim a sacred treasure of the past...

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

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.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From School Library Journal

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
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Berkley (September 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 042517025X
• ISBN-13: 978-0425170250
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.9 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #284,146 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Margaret Coel is the author of four nonfiction books and 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.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars NOT The Formula Mystery, May 12, 2000

By 

Mark Valentine (Port Angeles, WA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Story Teller (A Wind River Reservation Myste) (Paperback)

For some of us, it's enjoyable to read a mystery NOT about finding jewels, treasure maps, precious uranium and the like, but an adventure tale about recovering a lost book, a ledger book, in fact. Coel's mystery picks up with characters she has introduced already in her previous novels: Vicky Holden, an Arapaho attorney, and her colleague, Fr. John O'Malley. Together, the unlikely pair track down a pictographic story drawn in a ledger book detailing the Arapaho involvement (as some of the slain)in the Sand Creek Massacre in 1864. The book is important for the pair to discover because it could be used to reclaim lands taken from them so long ago.

The mystery moves in a measured tempo, with a true rising action and a finale that reads in a flash.

Yet the power in this tale, at least for me, lies in the characterization of its two protagonists, current-day pariahs, as heroes, struggling against the revisionist Historians (--History is written by the winners, goes the adage--) set to try to win again.

Of course, I won't tell you how it ends. Enjoy!

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Southwest mystery reminiscent of Hillerman, August 21, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Story Teller (Wind River Reservation Mystery) (Hardcover)

The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGRA) allows tribes to reclaim some of their artifacts from museums, who must provide a list of their collection. Recently the Denver Museum of the West provided a list to the Arapaho Cultural Director Dennis Eagle Cloud, who in turn showed it to elderly storyteller Charles Redman. "Grandfather" immediately claimed the museum omitted the ledger that contains the stories of Chief Niwot as scribed by No-Ta-Nee.

Attorney Vicky Holden explains to the pair that they have no legal recourse in obtaining the ledger. Dennis explodes and accuses his fellow tribesperson as being Anglicized after a decade amongst the whites. Vicky starts to argue back, but stops when Grandfather asks her to look for the book. She reverently agrees. However, before she can begin her search, a Arapaho student is killed while seeking the missing book. With the help of Father John O'Malley, a pastor on the Wind River Reservation, Vicky inquires into the invaluable historical account of her people while trying to ferret out a murderer.

Margaret Coel's latest Native American mystery, THE STORY TELLER, may be her best work to date as she brilliantly ties together a who-done-it with Native American culture. The characters all ring true as they rapidly propel forward the tribal conflict with assimilation, the puzzle of the missing agenda (that provides much insight into the Arapaho lifestyle), and the murder mystery. Ms. Coel is one of the top story tellers of the sub-genre, ranking with the likes of Tony Hillerman. Fans of the contemporary Native American mystery should also read THE DREAM STALKER, THE GHOST WALKER, and THE EAGLE CATCHER for a collection elite novels.

Harriet Klausner

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Never A Dull Moment, January 3, 2007

By 

Rachel Elaine - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Story Teller (A Wind River Reservation Myste) (Paperback)

Margaret Coel has the ability to transport the reader to a different world, to a place where her characters live and breathe, once opening the first page of one of her books. You will surely not want to put the book down until the mystery had been solved, this one spanning the Wyoming Wind River reservation to the busy streets of Denver, the southern plains of Colorado and back again.

Coel is a stunning Storyteller herself. Skillful, studied, straightforward, smooth, strategic, sublime, sizzling, solid, sonorous, spacious, succinct, spicy, suspenseful, stupendous, substantial, spotless, superb and other superlatives could readily summarize her stories.