The Shadow Dancer by Margaret Coel

 

There are a small number of mystery series I'll read, and this is one. Coel's mysteries on the Wind River Reservation are reasonably effective mysteries, and they're very effective dramas--not so much family drama in the way William Kent Krueger's are, but very much focused on the characters and the people they're attached to, and to the open and vast beauty of the place. This is pretty typical, and it's clear Coel spent some time having characters move back and forth between the Reservation and elsewhere (Denver, for instance) so she could have the same relationship dynamics available to her. This makes some sense, though it does make the various relevant timelines a little ... slippery. The fact the first murder victim here was tightly connected to one of Coel's mains is a bit of a vaguely nasty surprise, but a well-executed one. Coel clearly really likes her characters in these, and it's hard not to agree with her as a reader; I'll keep reading these as I keep finding ones I haven't read.