Every couple years, Marcie R. Rendon comes out with another Cash Blackbear mystery. Sinister Graves is the third in this bleak series. Despite the dark atmosphere, I still read each book, hoping for a glimpse of hope. In this case, there’s a Native woman called Jonesy, and a student and fellow pool shark, Shyla GoodPlenty. There’s not much more to alleviate the darkness.
In the 1970s, Renee “Cash” Blackbear is a young Ojibwe woman, a college student whose closest friend is Sheriff Wheaton, the man who saved her from a car accident when she was three. She grew up in white foster homes, separated from family, and hasn’t seen her mother or sister in sixteen years. Her brother, Mo, just reupped for a second tour in Vietnam. Wheaton finally rescued her from the foster care system, got her an apartment in Fargo, North Dakota, and made sure she went to college. He also believes in Cash’s dreams. Sometimes, she just knows things, and then they come true. She goes to school, works odd jobs in Minnesota and North Dakota, especially in the farming community, does a little investigating for Wheaton, drinks beer and plays pool.
The spring thaws have flooded the area from the Red River Valley to Lake Winnipeg in Manitoba. Wheaton calls Cash to say the body of a young Native woman just floated into town, and he’s hoping Cash can talk to people on the White Earth Reservation and identify her. She was hit over the head, then smothered. And, at sometime, she was pregnant. There are few people willing to brave the floodwaters to help her reach the reservation, but an auto mechanic named Al is willing to take her in return for a twelve-pack.
As Cash investigates, stories lead her to a small rural church, a cemetery there, and the charismatic minister and his wife. But Cash and another one of Wheaton’s strays, a young man named Geno, both see a black shadow at the cemetery. Geno calls it a Jiibay, a dead ghost that you see around death. It’s Geno who guides Cash to Jonesy, who knew the two of them were coming to see her. She says she just pays attention. But, she understands Cash’s gift, her dreams, and offers her protection.
When another young Native woman is found dead, gossip sends Cash back to that small country church where a handful of other Native women scope out the minister. Cash is willing to check out the services and congregation, but she’s also interested in the stones in the cemetery, stones that mark graves for several infants. Cash returns several times before she finds answers.
As I said, Rendon’s books are bleak. Her previous novel, Girl Gone Missing, dealt with the disappearance of young women, fellow college students. Now, inspired by an interest in crimes in rural areas, and the children’s bodies found in boarding school cemeteries in Canada, Rendon takes Cash into a rural area where she has no backup.
But, it’s not only the atmosphere and the background that is dark. Cash herself is a lost young woman. When the college is closed for spring break, and Wheaton is out of town, she’s at loose ends. She can’t work in the fields yet because of the floods. She’s had bad experiences with men, so she’s not sure how to handle her attraction to Al. And, when she teams up with Shyla GoodPlenty to play pool, she realizes she’s never spent much time with other young women.
Rendon herself is a citizen of the White Earth Nation who uses some of the history and experiences of Natives in her Cash Blackbear mysteries. There’s a reason the stories are bleak, with different experiences in the 1970s for “city Indians” and ones from the reservations. Having no such background, I suspect that Rendon is pouring the truth into crime novels featuring Cash Blackbear.
Marcie R. Rendon’s website is https://www.marcierendon.com/
Sinister Graves by Marcie R. Rendon. Soho Crime, 2022. ISBN 9781641293839 (hardcover), 240p.
FTC Full Disclosure – I read a galley for a journal review.
