Another Period Mystery

Last month I read a book called Murder on the Red River, the first in a series by Marcie R. Rendon. It's somewhat of a nontraditional mystery story; not the usual cozy mystery with a detective searching for clues and using logic to solve the crime. Cash Blackbear is a 19 year old Ojibwe woman, and she is investigating the murder of a man from the nearby Red Lake Reservation. Cash was taken from her single mom as a kid and passed around the foster care system for years, getting abused and used for free labor. The local Sheriff Wheaton helps her often and is an informal father figure to her. So she works with him on murders, even though it's not her job. Cash also has dream visions sometimes, which often point the way. Tragically, this Red Lake man left behind a widow and seven children, which makes Cash feel personally involved. The widow soon dies too, and Cash can't take the thought of the children also going through the horrible foster care system. She needs to help them somehow, and the ghost of their mother keeps urging her on in visions.

The book is set in the 1970s, in Fargo, North Dakota, and surrounding areas. There's news of the Vietnam War in the background, though Cash doesn't comment. She lives day to day, but can't help noticing the unfairness and cruelty of the white world. How the United States historically gave free homestead land to European immigrants, but forced the native tribes onto reservations. How the foster care system routinely takes Native kids away from their parents, but never takes white kids from their own abusive, drunk, and poor white families. How Cash has to regularly take racist insults like "squaw" and be told by her white lover to just "let it go" and be calm. It's a neverending cycle of injustice. There's hope for the future though, as Sheriff Wheaton helps Cash sign up for college, so she can get a better job than itinerant farmhand. I liked it overall and will probably continue the series, though I wish that Cash had asked the Sheriff about her lost family.

Speaking of historical mysteries, I also tried to read a sample of Christopher Huang's Unnatural Ends, but the language was oddly stilted and formal; I couldn't care about any of the characters either. I could not tell from the sample if his Eric Peterkin detective was continuing in the series or not, so I don't know if I'll buy it. I need a bigger sample I guess. I liked his first book A Gentleman's Murder.