The Ghost Walker

Wind River Reservation #2

by Margaret Coel

Father John O'Malley comes across the corpse lying in a ditch beside the highway. When he returns with the police, it is gone. The Arapahos of the Wind River Reservation speak of Ghost Walkers—tormented souls caught between the earth and the spirit world, who are capable of anything.

Then, within days, a young man disappears from the Reservation without a trace. A young woman is found brutally murdered. And as Father John and Arapaho lawyer Vicky Holden investigate these crimes, someone—or something—begins following them.

Together, Vicky and Father John must draw upon ancient Arapaho traditions to stop a killer, explain the inexplicable, and put a ghost to rest...

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Native American, Mystery Thriller, Westerns, Native Americans, Audiobook

253 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Margaret Coel is the New York Times bestselling, award-winning author of the acclaimed novels featuring Father John O'Malley and Vicky Holden, as well as several works of nonfiction. Originally a historian by trade, she is considered an expert on the Arapaho Indians.

Reviews

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although the plot was a bit formulaic and contrived, this was an enjoyable read due to the setting and characters. I will continue to read in this series. I'm amused by the number of ways Margaret Coel describes the sky and the weather - a constant reminder of people's heightened awareness of the outdoors in this high prairie setting.

[Lana Kamennof-sine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Set on an Arapahos Reservation, the main character, Father John O'Malley, priest & dedicated do gooder attempts to discover why there are disappearances, how to manage to offer extra programming for the children when there's no money, and how to counter an attempt to close down the mission & replace it with a commercial venture. A balanced perspective showcasing the innate good, selflessness & evil, greed.

[Barb · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am on a voyage of discovery. I've collected all of Margaret Coel's books, and I'm marathon-reading them. This is an amazing series, and THE GHOST WALKER is incredible all by itself. So much research and study has obviously gone into the writing; the author is intimately familiar with the way of the Arapahoe people. At the forefront of this tale there is the inevitable conflict between the tribe and neighboring whites. THE GHOST WALKER introduces us to a corporation who wants to buy the land the Mission is on to build a recreation center which will probably turn into a casino. In addition, Vicky Holden's daughter returns from Los Angeles in the company of three white men, and Vicky is sure that Susan is on drugs. And a body is discovered in a ditch during a blinding blizzard. By the time the police are notified and respond, the body has vanished, although there are footprints and an indentation, so the police take it seriously. Arapahoe believe that if a body is not properly buried, the spirit becomes a ghost and causes problems in the area. Coel has interwoven these threads along with glimpses into the day to day life of the Wind River tribe. Even though this volume is now 20 years old, its relevancy to today's situation in central Wyoming remains. An excellent read.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fr. John O'Malley, a Jesuit priest is pastor at St. Francis Mission at the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming.

On the way to a meeting on a snowy day, his car breaks down and while walking for help, he stumbles over a body partially hidden in the snow. When he reaches help and returns with the sheriff, the body has been removed.

He is also informed that there is a plan to sell the Mission and build a community center. The economic advisor for the reservation is behind the idea as is an attorney who seems sleezy.

The setting is well described with the large scale unemployment and problems with alcohol and drugs on the reservation. Some of the Arapaho's feel they want a community center and more jobs but others believe in tradition and leaving things they way they were.

When the body was removed, it set in force an Indian legend that a body that is moved, is like a soul between two places because of some bad thing about their life.

I enjoyed the well written story.

[KDawn · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good story. I liked the mystery and the interaction of the characters...

However I don't recommend listening to it. You can hear the pages turning and volume goes up and down. The reader (Stephanie Brush)is hard to listen to for me. Unfortunately, everyone sounds like a little girl. I think a male reader would be better since the lead character is a man, too. IMHO.

[Leslie Conner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great story, well written with difficult and complex problems.interesting discussion of current modern social issues and well developed characters. It moves so fast at the end. Well worth the slower beginning.

[Fredrick Danysh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Father John finds a dead body in the snow that disappears before the police can take action. Vikie Holder's estranged daughter return with problems. A group of investors are trying to shut down and buy St. Francis mission. Another excellent story from Coel.

[Edward Laufer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I very much enjoyed the inclusion of teaching points regarding the customs and world-view in the novel. Also, the idea of presentation Father John as a recovering alcoholic makes him a much more believable minister to the inhabitants of Wind River Reservation.

[Jenn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very fast read

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a good story and well written. Lots of characters to keep track of but the plot was very good.

[Janet · Rating 3 out of 5]

Boston Irish alcoholic Jesuit priest serving on an Arapaho reservation mission in Wyoming with a female Arapaho attorney with an alcoholic ex husband as a friend playing detective when a dead body surfaces.
The writing isn't great literature but the mysteries are interesting and the book is just fun reading.

I'm definitely going to continue this series.

[Cathy Cole · Rating 4 out of 5]

Margaret Coel's writing puts you right on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming-- and that winter wind cuts right through you while you try to piece together all the clues in a very satisfying mystery. While the setting is beautifully rendered, what holds all the pieces of location and investigation together is her superb cast of characters.

Father John O'Malley is a real, flawed human being who cares deeply for the Arapaho on the Wind River Reservation. He has taken the time and trouble to learn their history and their customs, and as a result his parishioners have learned to trust and value him as an important part of their lives. His friend Vicky Holden is a bit prickly and tends to be very reserved, but she's had a tough row to hoe-- escaping from an abusive alcoholic husband and working hard to earn a law degree. Now she's back on the reservation to help her people, but she straddles both worlds and conflicts can arise-- like the sudden reappearance of her daughter, who resents Vicky for leaving her father and making her own way in the world.

All the characters play against each other very well as the various threads of the plot begin to mesh together. Thankfully Coel adds welcome touches of humor to all the serious goings on of the plot, letting us watch the quick-thinking priest wheel and deal to get the people on the reservation the things they so desperately need. Especially humorous is the scene in which O'Malley cuts a deal with a car salesman.

Equally important amongst the murders, the setting, and the characters are the glimpses Coel gives us into Arapaho culture:


"Whites'll say Lester's my brother's grandson."

Father John gave a nod of understanding. There was no concept of aunt, uncle, or cousin on the reservation. Your brother's child was your child. Thomas and Mardell had no children of their own, but they were not childless.



It's a concept other cultures would do well to take to heart.

This is only the second book I've read in this series, but the further I get into it, the deeper I fall. Margaret Coel knows how to write a feast for both mind and heart.

[Randee Baty · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have to say, this is the first book I've read that's made me want to go put my coat on!

Father John is the priest on at St. Francis parish on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming and this book is set in the middle of winter. We start out with Father John having car problems in the middle of a blizzard and it just seems to get colder from there. When he gets out of the car to find help, he instead finds a dead body in a ditch. By the time he can get the police to the site, the body is gone. No one has been reported missing on the reservation so they don't even know who it was, much less how or why he was killed. The title refers to the Arapaho belief that because the body isn't buried properly, it's ghost is now haunting the area. Father John is determined to find out who the body is as well as why the person was killed and dumped.

Along the way Father John, with his friend Vicky Holden, has to deal with the specter of his mission being closed, drugs and alcohol on the reservation, poverty and lack of jobs among the Arapaho and many other difficult but realistic issues. The social issues were handled as part of the story and I never felt like I was having someone's views forced on me. The mystery becomes clear as the story progresses and you'll probably figure it out before the end of the book but not a long way before the end. I liked this book a lot and will enjoy finding more of the series to read.

This author and series will inevitably draw comparisons with Tony Hillerman and rightly so as he was the inspiration for Margaret Coel to start writing from what I've been told. The two writers have quite different styles, however. I think that Hillerman focuses directly on the culture of the Navajo more while Coel weaves the culture into the story. I would say that Hillerman writes Navajo stories that are mysteries while Coel writes mysteries that happen to be Arapaho. I'm a fan of both writers and both series.

[June · Rating 4 out of 5]

The main characters are very sympathetic, maybe because of their faults. They still try to do the "right" thing. Escaping abusive relationships, leaving children, what we owe our children - how to help them, alcohalism... all very contemporary and universal themes. I have ordered the third in the series.

[Brenda Hicks · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had to check this author out a couple of times before getting a book read and I'm glad I did. I wanted to start at the beginning with The Eagle Catcher but did not feel lost starting here at the second in the series.. This is a wonderful police procedural in the spirit of Sheriff Longmire....if Longmire was a priest.

There are so many good things about this book. It sits well in the memory. The writing is good, the plots well formed and the characters are human with all the contrdictory weaknesses and goodness that come with the condition.

Coel is a native of Colorado and billed on Wikipedia as an American Historian. She graduated from college about the time Craig Johnson was born. No doubt the latter is familiar with her work. Margaret's writing is considered to be 'insightful commentary about Arapahoe culture.' Perhaps of more importance to those of us on the prairie, one of her novels secured a Willa Cather award for Best Novel of the West.

Paying attention to the title this book deals with the Arapahoe tradition that a body not properly buried walks the earth. Father John O'Malley, a Jesuit priest and recovering alcoholic, will not rest until the ghost walker finds peace. What follows is an ever escalating tale of love, pain, frustration, faith, prejudice and grace. The message is one of love for thy neighbor sprinkled with opera, Shakespeare and basketball.

I really enjoyed this book from the woman who loves to 'drink in the West' from the window in the study of her Colorado mountain home. I may return to the series and Arapahoe reservation in the future. Maybe now that I've read her second book, I can finally grab hold of the first.

[Brian Campbell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fair mystery, fair plot, enjoyable read due to description of setting and main character. Father John O’Malley is the priest of a Jesuit Mission on land purchased from the Arapaho Nation’s reservation. As such Fr. John is deeply involved in the lives and culture of the congregants most of whom are Arapaho. The title refers to an Arapaho belief that delay of proper burial of a human corpse curses the deceased to haunt the living. This facet of the story is well written.
Also well written is Fr. John’s unceasing search for the missing grandson who is a major caregiver for a fragile elderly couple living in a remote area of the Wind River Arapaho Reservation. Fr. John is threatened by some newly arrived thugs who John suspects are distributing drugs and by a local lawyer representing a shady corporation working to buy the Jesuit Mission property. I like John’s dedication to his parishioners.
This title includes more murders than I remember in other titles in this series. Probably not the best title in the series, but still worthy of reading.

[Barb · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is only the second book in the series, but I feel confident in saying I'm going to enjoy these books. In a lot of ways, they remind me of Tony Hillerman's Leaphorn & Chee books - focused on the interactions between whites and a Native American tribe (in this case, the Arapaho), with complicated mysteries that are obvious and hard to figure out at the same time.

Father John, the MC, is a Jesuit priest whose church serves the primarily Arapaho community. He is a recovering alcoholic and an outsider, but the locals have come to trust him, which plays an important role in this book. I like most of the people around him, and love that he is truly interested in learning - and respecting - the Arapaho culture and their traditions.

We learn relatively early in the book what is going on, but not who is responsible. Even when I thought I'd figured that out, there was no evidence to back that up, and it wasn't until just before the end of the book that all was revealed.

I plan to continue this series when I am able to locate a copy of the next book, hopefully relatively soon :)

[Wanda Hargrove · Rating 5 out of 5]

During a blizzard, Father John O'Malley's truck breaks down. As he walks toward the highway looking for help and a ride to a shop he knows he comes across a body in a ditch. He reports it to the BIA police but things take a strange turn when the body is missing. The Arapaho believe that if the dead is not put to rest then it becomes a ghost walker and creates mischief. Father John can't help but wonder who the body was when he comes across a fact he can't overlook. An Arapaho is missing, and then a young woman is murdered who was the missing man's girlfriend. Things take a darker twist when a group want's to buy St. Francis mission and turn it into a recreation center. But Father John doesn't believe it and is now in the sights of a murderer.

[Jan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Father John O'Malley comes across the corpse lying in a ditch beside the highway. When he returns with the police, it is gone. The Arapahos of the Wind River Reservation speak of Ghost Walkers—tormented souls caught between the earth and the spirit world, who are capable of anything.Then, within days, a young man disappears from the Reservation without a trace. A young woman is found brutally murdered. And as Father John and Arapaho lawyer Vicky Holden investigate these crimes, someone—or something—begins following them.

Together, Vicky and Father John must draw upon ancient Arapaho traditions to stop a killer, explain the inexplicable, and put a ghost to rest...

[Terry Steinborn · Rating 3 out of 5]

A pretty good story, although very derivative of the famous Hillerman Navajo mysteries. The action takes place with the Arapahoes of western Wyoming, and does a good job of fitting into the traditions and realities of Arapaho life on the Wind River reservation. The story revolves around an Anglo Jesuit priest who runs the mission on the reservation and his relations with the natives and his struggles with off-reservation powers. Threats of closure of the mission and its sale to a mysterious California corporation for development as a tribal (commercial) center gets the story rolling, and complicating factors keep adding to the mix, including murder, drug dealing and other crimes.

[Sue · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the second book in Coel's Wind River Reservation series and is the second book that I've read. I have to say that I enjoyed The Ghost Walker even more than the first book, The Eagle Catcher. The mystery in The Ghost Walker was detailed and a nail-biter. There were a few times that I knew what was coming but most of the time events were a surprise as they unfolded. However, the strengths of Coel's writing are her characters, they are strong, complex and well-written, and her knowledge and descriptions of the Arapahoes and their reservation. I was cold just reading about the Wyoming winters.

I'm looking forward to the third book in the series.

[Michael Brunson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I give it a four with caveats.

This feels like a it was written by a Tony Hillerman want to be. I may have the wrong end of the stick here, but, that is how it reads to me.
If I am being unfair I apologise. I know if I had written it I would want it judged on its own merits. Hillerman is one of my favorite down time authors. I cannot give an unbiased opinion.
I will say that I enjoyed the story and with more in the series I hope to see further character development of other regulars in the stories. That will add needed depth to the story development. The world of first Nations needs to stand on more than one white priest.

[Gareld Butler · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good second novel in this series. I enjoyed it as much as the first. Good character development with further insights into the personal and family issues of Father O'Malley and Vicki. I appreciated that the author included within the story some of the social issues of the reservation (poverty, unemployment, local-native friction, the pressure to put in casinos, the drinking issues, etc.) to help the reader better understand the day-to-day life on the reservation. I love the descriptions of the Wind River reservation area itself. I will definitely continue with the rest of the books in the series.

[Jeannine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really starting to enjoy this series. Father John O'Malley is a recovering alcoholic and Jesuit priest assigned to the St. Francis Mission on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming. The author deals with life and death issues that face our native American population in a realistic and compassionate manner while still managing to show the humor and beauty of the Arapaho traditions and customs. When Father John finds a body in a blizzard that later disappears, he begins a search for a young Indian man who is missing. His search uncovers more that he bargained for, putting his friend Vicky and his mission in jeopardy. Great characters and interaction.

[Heather Ames · Rating 4 out of 5]

This writer knows her setting and weaves it into this plot so tightly, it becomes one of the characters. Stellar writing...I was drawn in immediately. A priest who fights his own demons on a daily basis. No punches pulled where it comes to the interactions between the white versus Arapaho communities. A gutsy female lawyer who takes chances when she probably shouldn't provides an interesting foil for Father John, who gets himself into some pretty edge-of-seat-producing scenarios, too. As the threads draw toward each other, there's a real A-Ha moment. I'm definitely going to read others in this series. A winner for me.

[Sidney Rippy McLaughlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Father John Does it Again

Father John is a great Character. He’s part PI, part priest, and part regular guy. I love that the setting is on the reservation and in Wyoming.
As with the first book, Father John stumbles onto a murder. He never stands back and let’s the police do everything. After all, as a man of the cloth, he can go places that they can’t. When he sees a body in the snow that later disappears, he’s on a mission to figure out who it is and what happened to that body. He’s doing this while trying to figure out how to keep his beloved, historic mission from being sold and torn down to build a recreation center.

[George Allen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a hell of a book! What a ride and what a conclusion!

I read the first book in this series and was not impressed. I thought, there is a series that I won't be reading. Anne Hillerman mentioned Margaret Coel in the acknowledgements in one of her books. Okay, I guess I'll give the Wind River Reservation series one more try. Thank you, Anne Hillerman.

Father John, Jesuit, recovering alcoholic has no idea when he finds a dead body in a ditch, what the next week will bring. A lot of subplots and interesting characters. A grand conclusion brings it all together and fully satisfies the subplots.

I'm hooked.

[Rosemary · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this second book from the Father John O’Malley series, the author brigs brutal winter through the story that opens with a broken-down Toyota, mid-blizzard. She carefully and sensitively tackles the alcohol and substance abuse without the use of trite characterization. The opening involves an Arapaho body that quickly goes missing, leaving its ghost to prowl, unshriven. From there, truly evil characters threaten the St. Francis Mission and many of its residents. This instalment is so much more compelling than the first, so this reader is committed to a third helping.

[Missyjohnson1 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really fast read. Enjoyed the mystery that Father John O’Malley got himself entangled with. He finds a body on a snow covered deserted road at night. When the authorities go to investigate, the body is no longer there. The story takes place on an Arapahoe reservation. Interesting story and not too far-fetched. Drug cartel finds ways to make its way onto the rez and begin making fentanyl. There is a possibility that the recreation center proposed by the Z Group is really a front for a future casino. This means that the Jesuit mission will be torn down and Father John out of a job.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the second book in the Wind River Reservation series. I had read the first book and found it a bit difficult to follow. I found this book to have a much more readable style. I thoroughly enjoyed the story. Although some of the plot twists were easy to see others were sufficiently surprising to make the book a very enjoyable read. It convinced me to keep reading the series.

I recommend the book as a pleasant mystery to read.