The Lost Bird

by Margaret Coel Narrated by Stephanie Brush

Overview

What reason would anyone have to kill an aging elderly priest? Unless the reason dates back to 1964 when Father Joseph Keenan left his post. The same year dozens of Arapaho newborns had died from contaminated water. It was also the year Hollywood star Sharon David was born, perhaps to one of those grieving families. When the adopted celebrity shows up in Vicky Holden's office with clues suggesting she was born in the area it's clear that the glamorous actress is a “lost bird.” And there may be a flock behind her along with an ages old cover up...

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Fr. John O'Malley and attorney Vicky Holden solve a mystery and wrestle with their mutual--and forbidden--attraction in another suspenseful outing (after The Story Teller, 1998). When his elderly assistant is killed on a back road on the Wind River Arapaho Reservation in Wyoming, Father John assumes that he himself was the target, since the dead man was driving his truck and had just stepped out of it when he was shot. Soon, however, he learns that the frail old priest, who once held Father John's current post as head of the St. Francis Mission, came back to the reservation to expose a long-buried crime against the Arapaho people. When Holden, an Arapaho lawyer, hears that a priest has been murdered, she fears the worst, since Sonny Red Wolf, an angry Indian separatist, has often vowed to drive Father John off the reservation. After Holden finds Father John alive, she embarks on her own investigation of the murder. Meanwhile, movie star Sharon David hires Holden to trace her true lineage; she is convinced she was born to Arapaho parents on the reservation and given away for adoption. Holden repeats the local legend--that many Arapaho babies died of a mysterious sickness around the time of Sharon David's birth, so no Arapaho would let a baby go. Probing, however, she uncovers a plot involving a clinic and a famous pediatrician, while Father John, converging on the same plot, confronts the killer. Like many mystery writers working on Native American ground, Coel knows that the gaps between cultures are fertile ground for suspense. She also develops solid characters and a keen sense of place that keep this tale humming. Author tour. (Nov.) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

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, Vicky—like everyone else, including Father John—assumes 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 then—an inexplicable rise in Native American infant mortality, a couple of suspicious suicides—that 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.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169725988
Publisher:	Books in Motion
Publication date:	03/15/2000
Series:	Father O'Malley , #5
Edition description:	Unabridged

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