The Thunder Keeper, by Margaret Coel

Retrieved from: someone else's library
042518188x, 2001
Suggested by: on The List
My Ratings: 8 Merit, 8 Interest, 8 Fun

Oy. If the last book's tack was "partner abuse," this one is "can you trust priests?" I've never been a big fan of the whole Sanctity of the Confessional in the first place but I have to admit it's a perfect Jesuitical jumping-off place for a mystery: someone confesses to a crime and promises more to come so what can a priest do to fulfill the vows he's taken? He can't tell the police what he heard, and he can't let the confessor (whom he--naturally--doesn't recognize) get away with committing more crimes....

Meanwhile, his new assistant is ... problematic. Thank God Vicki has moved to Denver to keep herself away from temptation. Except, of course, she and Father O'Malley end up working on solving the same problem, working from two different ends of the story. She gets involved because a man who asked to meet her for lunch is killed in a hit-and-run accident right in front of her. Father O'Malley is trying to convince the FBI that no Indian would kill himself during a vision quest in a sacred area of the reservation. Oh, plus he's trying to stop his Unknown Confessor from doing any more killing. Eventually, they all these strands are woven together, with the exception of his problematic assistant who is completely unclear on the vows he took before becoming a priest. In one of the most telling exchanges in the series, and one of the most damning for the Catholic Church as a whole, he says to Father John: "I have no intention of leaving the priesthood. A priest forever, according to the Order of Melchizedek...I have a career, a reputation." He has no sense of honor, putting the Mission in the position of having sell property to pay off the woman he was "in love with."

Good ending to this book. I sure hope these two people get their act together pretty soon. Vicki's moving back to the rez so things will be more complicated in the next book, I'm sure.