Winter's Child

September 26, 2016
Bestseller Coel deftly melds Native American history with a fairly-clued whodunit in her 20th Wind River mystery (after 2015’s The Man Who Fell from the Sky). At a meeting of the Fremont County (Wyo.) Bar Association, Vicky Holden, an Arapaho attorney, talks to fellow lawyer Clint Hopkins, who’s white, about an adoption case he’s handling. Myra and Eldon Little Shield, an Arapaho couple, have been raising a white girl as their own since the night she was abandoned on their doorstep as an infant, and now, five years later, they want to formalize the relationship. Just after Clint and Vicky say goodbye, a truck runs Clint down as he’s crossing the street and speeds off. She’s the only witness who believes that the fatality was intentional, and her own efforts to investigate are stymied when she finds that Clint’s records on the Little Shield case are minimal. Meanwhile, series regular Fr. John O’Malley helps her try to persuade Vince White Hawk, a client of hers who has been charged with armed robbery, to surrender to the authorities. This is an excellent entry point for new readers, many of whom will be motivated to seek out earlier books. Agent: Rick Henshaw, Richard Henshaw Group.