The Eagle Catcher by Margaret Coel

 

I've had this book since some point in the 1990s, and I'm still a fan of the author and this series (yeah, I know I don't much like series fiction--I have what Fitzgerald would have called a "first-class mind"); I have a lot of books I kinda want to reread, and tonight was a weird night timing-wise, so I figured I might as well reread this. It's good, in the way Book One tends to be, it sets up most of the overarching tensions of the series, it establishes at least the two main characters and some of the ancillary ones (though I think there's some churn in the latter). Some of the backstory, I think, ends up getting dragged forward--I don't think the characters ever age all that much past where they start (though it seems probable the Jesuit priest's situation might evolve). The prose is solid, and Coel seems to enjoy and appreciate these characters, and the physical place they're in. Not deathless literature, but something the world is better for having in it.