At least it looks like someone tried to kill him. But it is Father John’s elderly assistant priest, Father Joseph Keenan who actually is murdered. However, it seems unlikely that Father Joseph had been the target of a skilled marksman; he had only been at St. Francis Mission for two weeks.

In Margaret Coel’s fifth series mystery, The Lost Bird, Father John and his friend Vicky Holden work to uncover the murderer. However, they don’t work together. Because the two recognize a strong attraction between them, they work on their own and with the authorities, but try to keep their distance. Still, tender feelings remain.

Vicky Holden is an Arapaho attorney, early forties, pretty, divorced and with grown children. In her small office in Lander, Wyoming, Vicky is shocked one day when a huge case drops into her lap. Sharon David, a famous Hollywood actress, appears at her door and asks for Vicky’s help. I’m adopted, she says, and I am sure I am Arapaho just like you. Vicky is stunned by the claim, and explains to Sharon the long ugly history of babies torn from their Indian mothers by the government. By 1964, Sharon’s year of birth, the cruel practice had ended and no one put an Arapaho infant up for adoption.

Still, looking at the beautiful Ms. David, Vicky realizes she is indeed Indian. And the little information Sharon has points to the local reservation as the site of her birth. Could it be that some young Arapaho woman secretly gave up a baby thirty-five years ago? Vicky takes the case, thrilled with the big retainer fee.

As the story progresses, Vicky searches both for the identity of Father Joseph’s murderer, and the identity of Sharon David’s parents. That the two plots eventually intertwine is no surprise, but Coel twists the two plot threads together with skill. As more about Father Joseph’s previous term at St. Francis Mission comes to light, and the story of a famous baby doctor’s early clinic is told, the action builds to a satisfactory peak.

Author Coel does an especially believable job with the character of Father John O’Malley. A good man at heart, he still fights the demon of his past alcohol abuse, and suffers occasional doubts about his vocation. When his troubled niece turns up on his doorstep, Father John must take a hard look at himself. That the author chooses to write about a decent and human priest, when it is much more popular to make a religious figure a hypocritical bad guy, makes for a nice change in a mystery.

While there are bound to be inevitable comparisons with Tony Hillerman’s mysteries, (and there are indeed similarities), Margaret Coel’s The Lost Bird stands on its own merit as both a mystery and a novel featuring realistic Arapaho characters. The strong male and female characters are enjoyable -- and worthy of more stories.

--Martha Moore