The Shadow Dancer, by Margaret Coel

Retrieved from: Someone else's library
0425186407, 2002
Suggested by: The List
My Ratings: 9 Merit, 8 Interest, 8 Fun

I'm nearly caught up in this series, yahoo!

So, Vicki's back on the reservation, Father John is once again fighting to save the mission from the Church's businessmen. But the crux of the case revolves around the presence of a cult-like reorganization of the Shadow Dancers, founded after the Plains Indians were nearly completely exterminated at the end of the 19th century. The reorg was begun by a local rancher and is fueled by apocalypic vision and Valium, but it has begun to attract people who only want the white people gone from their lives.

Mixed up in all this is the disappearance of a young man who used to play baseball for Father John's mission team, and the continuing complications of Vicki and John's relationship. Even with the murder of Vicki's ex-husband, a man with so many issues it's hard to know where to start, their friendship is at odds with what people expect.

However, once the case is solved (before a dam is dynamited by cult members, after Vicki kills someone else, and once the mission is saved again) Vicki finally pulls the plug on any hopes for the future of her love for John. She will stay on the rez, but she has to get on with her life without endangering his vocation.

At last, the tension may be lessened in the next book. It was getting positively ridiculous.