Book Review: The Ghost Walker

Reviewed By: Carl Brookins - RAM

The Ghost Walker     Amazon US PB Amazon Canada PB
Margaret Coel
Class/Genre:   Mystery
Series: Wind River Reservation Mysteries # 2
Berkley, 1996

Author Margaret Coel is a writer in command of her craft. This is a fine novel, a worthy contribution to the genre. Not surprising, it's a best-seller.

The Wind River Arapaho reservation is in the grip of a Rocky Mountain winter. Father John O'Malley, pastor of the Catholic Mission on the reservation, is driving his wretched pickup truck to an important meeting with his Bishop's personal representative. When his truck dies on a lonely, snow-swept mountain road, he risks frostbite and more by continuing on foot, in an attempt to reach the meeting. He stumbles across a body and is swept up in a mystery of ghostly and unfathomable depth. And he never gets to that important meeting. What's more troubling, the body can't be found by the police.

These two events form the frame for the story. Coel has placed within her frame a cast of troubled, dangerous, benign and flawed characters, white and Native American, who must sort out murder, swirling feelings of inadequacy, codependency and good humor. Coel has created a protagonist, John O'Malley, a Catholic Priest, who is a real human being, a man who can understand the frailties of human nature, admire our strengths and treats the people with whom he interacts in a natural, humane and honest way. How honest he is with his own feelings at times, is another question.

And through the rising tensions of a limited time frame, racial biases, danger and violence, everyone and every event in this taut well- paced novel must struggle against the mountain winter, the snow and the insidious, biting cold.

While the solution to the mystery is not so surprising to the reader, The Ghost Walker is not a mystery puzzle, but rather an engrossing story, peopled with fascinating characters, many of whom this reviewer intends to read more about in the future.

Carl Brookins - RAM

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