The Spirit Woman, by Margaret Coel

Retrieved from: someone else's library
0425175979, 2000
Suggested by: on The List
My Ratings: 6 Merit, 8 Interest, 7 Fun

Father John and Vicki Holden are on a dangerous path, getting more and more entangled in each other's emotional lives, and they both know it. They both react differently to the realization, however, thus continuing the tension.

They are, however, forced into the usual role of working to figure out what happened to Sacajawea's memoirs, which historians have long discounted. The "official" record says that they were destroyed in a fire, but a Denver history professor (and friend of Vicki's) has just appeared on the reservation adamant that the memoirs exist. She bases her claims on the journal of another historian who disappeared years ago while hiking in the Wind River Mountains. This woman is also escaping from her abusive boyfriend. When she disappears, there are suspects aplenty.

There is also danger aplenty, not just physical danger, either, but emotional potholes are everywhere. I found myself quite disappointed in Vicki, and getting really annoyed at the whole situation between her and Father O'Malley. Wish Coel would have spent more time on the story and less on the characters; I kind of ended up feeling manipulated.