In this richly layered debut mystery inspired by the real issue of murdered and missing indigenous women, a badass Choctaw detective and her partner discover an insidious plot against their reservation while investigating the disappearance of a beloved champion athlete and must race to save their community-or risk being the next to vanish.
Choctaw Detective Perry Antelope has been with her partner Sophia Burns for only six months. Perry is a highly seasoned investigator while Sophia is still turning green during autopsies, but they are an intrepid pair with a high crime-solving rate. Then Dels Billy, beloved women's Indian Relay jockey, disappears.
When Perry and Sophia are called to investigate, they quickly realize that it's not just a random kidnapping. Piece by piece, they uncover unsettling connections between Dels' disappearance and a series of unsolved murders on their reservation. But the perpetrator always seems to be one step ahead, and Perry soon finds herself and her family in the crosshairs of a ruthless killer. Despite her husband's pleas for her to drop the case, Perry is determined to prevent Dels from becoming just another statistic to be forgotten.
As the investigation deepens, Perry and Sophia follow a tangled web of clues that point to an chilling plot closer to home. Torn between her family, her own mortality, and her duty to her community, Perry must race against the clock to find the killer, or let everything she's known slip away. Devon Mihesuah is the Cora Lee Beers Price Professor in the Hall Center for Humanities at the University of Kansas as well as an enrolled citizen of the Choctaw Nation. She is the second Native woman to receive a chaired professorship. She serves on the Board of Directors of the Lawrence Memorial Hospital Foundation and the Scholars Advisory Panel of the National Women's History Museum, and was invited to its Women's History Month celebrations by President Biden. She was the first female athlete to win an athletic scholarship under Title IX at the D1 NCAA institution TCU. She has written acclaimed nonfiction books on indigenous food sovereignty and Native history.
