Margaret Coel books

Anthologies

Arapaho Ten Commandments Reading Order

Catherine McLeod Reading Order

Civilization of the American Indians Reading Order

Non-Fiction

Short Story Collections

Standalone Novels

Wind River Reservation Reading Order

Margaret Coel built her reputation on the Wind River Reservation mysteries, a twenty-book series that brought Native American perspectives to the mystery genre. Father John O’Malley, a Jesuit priest working at St. Francis Mission on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming, partners with Vicky Holden, an Arapaho attorney who left the reservation for law school and returned to help her people. The series explores crimes rooted in conflicts between Native and white communities, disputes over resources and land, and the contemporary challenges of reservation life.

Coel’s background in Native American studies informs the cultural detail throughout her work. Before writing fiction, she spent years researching and writing about Plains Indian history, particularly the Arapaho people. This scholarship appears in her non-fiction books and the academic Civilization of the American Indians series, where she contributed multiple volumes on Native American history and culture. Her Arapaho Ten Commandments series combines traditional Arapaho values with historical context.

Beyond the Wind River books, Coel wrote the Catherine McLeod mysteries featuring a Denver history professor, and various standalone novels and short fiction. Her work has won awards including the Willa Literary Award and the Colorado Book Award. She has served as a voice for accurate Native American representation in popular fiction, using the mystery genre to educate readers about Arapaho culture and the complexities of modern reservation life.