The Shadow Dancer

The Shadow Dancer (2002), a crime novel by Margaret Coel, follows two main protagonists, Arapaho lawyer Vicki Holden, also known as Singing Bird, and Priest Father John O'Malley. The novel is the eighth in the Wind River Reservation series, which follows the crime-fighting antics of the priest and the lawyer as they seek justice for their constituents on the Wind River Reservation in rural Wyoming. In The Shadow Dancer, Father John, trying to solve the murder of the nephew of two parishioners, is distracted when Vicki is accused of the murder of her ex-husband, Ben. Vicki works to prove her innocence while Father John tries to find Dean's killer, but soon the two are reunited when the murders are connected by a single gun.

As the novel opens, Father John is working on a missing persons investigation prompted by his parishioners, Minnie and Louise Little Horse. The women live on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming and have been looking for their nephew, Dean, for some time when Father John begins to investigate. Father John tracks down Deans' girlfriend, Janis, whom Dean had kept secret from his doting and over-protective aunts.

As Father John is working on the missing persons case, Vicki Holden has gotten into a bind. She recently had a volatile dinner with Ben, her ex-husband, a prominent local businessman and a known ladies’ man. Soon after their dinner, Ben is shot and killed; found by local police. Vicki is immediately the prime suspect in the case, because she was one of the last people to see Ben alive. Father John knows she is innocent but doesn't have the time to set her free and find the missing boy, Dean.



Vicki is confident she can prove her innocence until a small issue involving a stolen gun connects her even more deeply to this confusing storyline. The weapon that was used to kill Ben belongs to Vicki's Aunt Rose. Aunt Rose had reported the gun stolen, but the police suspect Vicki is both the thief and the murderer because of her ease of access to the weapon.

Meanwhile, Father John is busy looking for Janis, Dean's girlfriend. He eventually tracks her down at a religious meeting led by James Sherwood, otherwise known as Orlando. Orlando is also a religious leader, but of another kind—he claims to be revitalizing the Shadow Dancers, an Indian sect from the 1890s that was popular in this part of the country. Many young people flock to Orlando, who plans a dance that will prepare his followers for an Indian paradise. Immediately, Father John is suspicious—Orlando seems power-hungry, and Father John wonders if his revived sect is a front for a cult.

Soon after the discovery of the Shadow Dancers, Father John makes another discovery—he finds Dean's body, shot by the same gun that was used to kill Ben. Suddenly, Father John and Vicki are reunited in their search for a killer—and all the clues lead back to Orlando, who is even more nefarious than he seems at first glance.



A native Coloradan, Margaret Coel is the best-selling author of the Wind River Reservation Mystery Series and the Catherine McLeod Mystery Series. She was educated at Marquette University. Included on several best-seller lists, including The New York Times, LA Times, and The Denver Post, five of her novels have won the Colorado Book Award, and her novel The Spirit Woman received the Willa Cather Award for Best Novel of the West. Coel also has authored four non-fiction books, including one on the expansion of the railroad, co-written with her father, and a biography of the Arapaho Chief Left Hand, which remains in print. There are now 20 Wind River Reservation books and counting, and two books in the Catherine McLeod series.