Author: Laurie L. Dove
Year published: 2025
Category: Adult fiction
Pages: 336
Rating: 4 out of 5
Location: (my 2026 Google Reading map): USA (OK)
Summary: To find a missing young woman, the new tribal marshal must also find herself.
At rock bottom following her daughter’s death, ex–Chicago detective Carrie Starr has nowhere to go but back to her roots. Starr’s father never talked much about the reservation where he was raised, but the tribe needs a new marshal as much as Starr needs a place to call home.
In the past decade, too many young women have disappeared from the rez. Some have ended up dead, others just…gone. Now local college student Chenoa Cloud is missing, and Starr falls into an investigation that leaves her drowning in memories of her daughter—the girl she failed to save.
Starr feels lost in this place she thought would welcome her. And when she catches a glimpse of a figure from her father’s stories, with the body of a woman and the antlers of a deer, Starr can’t shake the feeling that the fearsome spirit is watching her, following her.
What she doesn’t know is whether Deer Woman is here to guide her or to seek vengeance for the lost daughters that Starr can never bring home.
Review: I met this author at my town's Literary Festival and was impressed by what she said about writing and the story she was trying to tell. Yet, it feels like it took me forever to read this book, and I blame the World Cup. I have been watching most of the games and not reading. I finally sat down over the last couple of days and dedicated myself to reading this book, and that worked much better.
I like that this book is written about Indigenous people in the US by an author who is herself indigenous. She treats the culture, the people, and one particular myth/story with respect. She also brings to light issues that are huge on U.S. reservations: poverty, lack of infrastructure, outside forces making money on natural resources, and no/low funding for governmental agencies such as native-run police forces.
The mystery at the heart of this novel is one that is a national issue: that of missing girls and women in our indigenous communities. As I stated above, not enough attention or money is being used to solve the crimes or to find out what happened to the women. This part of the book is handled well since we see it all through the eyes of the one officer of the law assigned to this reservation. Carrie Starr, an Indigenous woman herself, is a difficult character to like: she drinks and smokes pot while working, doesn't take the disappearances seriously, and doesn't endear herself to the local population. She is just riding out her time. It's nice to see her change a bit for the better as the novel progresses.
I am not someone who does well with magical realism, and there is a bit of that (the Deer Woman) in the story. That doesn't mean the novel is bad at all, just a heads up for those who like it or don't. Overall, I am glad I read this book. I feel like I learned about the local people and traditions as well as reading about an interesting mystery.
Challenges for which this counts:
- 20 Books of Summer
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