With “Eye of the Wolf,” her 11th novel, Boulder resident Margaret Coel shines the light on her former career as a historian. The main topic is the wars between the Plains Indians, and especially the conflict between the Shoshone and Arapaho tribes. The critical event in this book is the real-life Bates Battle of 1874, which took place just outside the boundaries of the Wind River Reservation.
In the novel, the Wyoming reservation is home to Coel’s unique detecting team of Father John O’Malley, the Jesuit priest in charge of St. Francis Mission, and Vicky Holden, an Arapaho attorney. Coel continues the story from previous novels of the complicated relationship between O’Malley and Vicky Holden. This time she adds the presence of a new love interest, Adam Lone Eagle.
It is early spring, and winter is still evident with a recent snow. The book opens with “This is for the Indian Priest,” a message that goes to St. Aiden’s Episcopal Mission by mistake. The chilling words left on the answering machine:
Once they fell in heat.
Revenge is sweet
And cold.
Bodies in the snow.
Frozen enemy of old
Dead in the gorge
Attacks no more.
The cryptic poem challenges O’Malley’s knowledge of local history and geography. When he deduces the meaning and heads out to the remote Bates Battle site, he not only makes a gruesome discovery but also becomes another victim. After 130 years someone has apparently taken revenge on three Shoshone for the massacre of Arapahos that almost killed off that tribe during the 19th-century Plains wars. An eerie feature of these murders is the positioning of the bodies to mimic historic photos taken after the battle.
This horrific crime threatens the fragile peace between the two tribes forced to share the same reservation.
Vicky is dealing with the legal troubles of Frankie Montana, the son of her former schoolmate. Her inability to turn down Frankie’s defense is causing difficulties with her new law partner, Adam Lone Eagle. Adam wants the new firm of Holden & Lone Eagle to concentrate on the lucrative business of natural resources management for the reservation government. Contrary to her partner’s wishes, Vicky is focused on the three assault charges against Frankie, which shortly are amended to three counts of murder.
After discovering that the author of the history text depicting the massacre teaches at a local college, O’Malley visits professor Lambert. Lambert discloses that he is soon to publish a revealing new book about the Bates Battle called “Tribal Wars.” He claims the book sheds new light on the clash between Shoshone and Arapaho.
Part of the major appeal of Coel’s Wind River Mystery series is her two main characters. O’Malley, who arrived on the reservation nine years earlier from Boston, is a learned Jesuit priest, a scholar and a recovering alcoholic. Vicky is a former abused wife and a mother of two who worked nights to put herself through law school. Both have lives and histories burdened with old baggage. Each face daily struggles to accomplish their goals in their professions.
Another of Coel’s strengths is the addition of secondary characters with distinct personalities. There are two constants in O’Malley’s life: Elena, his Arapaho housekeeper, and his three-legged retriever, Walks-On. A frustrating and continuous issue for O’Malley is his newest assistant, another recovering alcoholic. All the previous assistants fell off the wagon, leaving him alone to minister to the many needs of the mission and its parishioners.
Coel weaves many threads involving jealousy, white supremacists, envy, tribal tensions, love and death into the main mystery, thus enriching the depth of the story. She has a winning combination of interesting and complex characters, fascinating settings, a complex plot and great atmosphere in Eye of the Wolf. This newest Wind River Mystery is a page-turner with a history lesson as a bonus.
Leslie Doran is a freelance writer living in Durango.
Eye of the Wolf
By Margaret Coel
Berkley Prime Crime, 319 pages, $23.95
