Cash Blackbear, a young Ojibwe woman and occasional sleuth, is back on the case after a man is found dead on a rural Minnesota farm in the next installment of the acclaimed Native crime series.
Minnesota, 1970s: Itâs spring in the Red River Valley and Cash Blackbear is doing fieldwork for a local farmerâuntil she finds him dead on the kitchen floor of the propertyâs rented farmhouse. The tenant, a Native field laborer, and his wife are nowhere to be found, but Cash discovers their young daughter, Shawnee, cowering under a bed. The girl, a possible witness to the killing, is too terrified to speak.
In the wake of the murder, Cash canât deny her intuitive abilities: she is suspicious of the farmerâs grieving widow, who offers to take in Shawnee temporarily. While Cash is scouring White Earth Reservation for Shawneeâs missing motherâwhom Cash wants to find before the girl is put in the foster systemâanother body turns up. Concerned by the escalating threat, Cash races against the clock to figure out the truth of what happened in the farmhouse.
Broken Fields is a compelling, atmospheric read woven with details of American Indian life in northern Minnesota, abusive farm labor practices and womenâs liberation.