Mask of the Deer Woman
by Laurie L Dove
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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.
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Book Details
- ISBN
- 9780593816103
- Binding
- Hardcover
- Authors
- Laurie L Dove
- Publisher
- Berkley Books
- Published Date
- January 21, 2025
- Language
- English
- Pages
- 336
- Physical Info
- 1.15 in H x 9.49 in L x 6.39 in W (1.05 lb)
Novels like Mask of the Deer Woman stand out because of their flawed heroes. Cassie Starr, broken, addicted to whiskey and weed, lost to a grief she can't confess, is marking the days as a BIA sheriff on the res of her ancestors. She becomes caught between the real world search for a missing college student and the spirit world of the Deer Woman who empowers tribal women, luring their killers and abusers to their death.Possible spoiler-While the novel has flaws, not the least of which is the 11th hour rescue by a white dude, Starr's journey discovering who she is as an Indian and a lone warrior is so compelling. There is so much pain and hurt here that several times I had to put it down, take a breather. I finished it in a day.
Headed back to the *Res", to work and being placed there because of your familiar heritage, resenting the location, the job, the reason for being placed here .Mask of the Deer Women , explores racial and ethnic identity, and learning to accept both your Indian Heritage, and your other ethnic heritage.Star had not realized that her father gave her a strong heritage link even though after he left the res he had not returned. The trauma of losing her mother superseded her actual Trump memories of being on the reservation. She actually spent more time there than she had ever known.The spirits have guided her home, meeting her paternal grandmother and folks important to her father.He left for love, because his wife hated the reservation hated being implanted culturally into Indian Life.Her father had many afflictions stereotypically aligned with Indians.I love that the author explored her own cultural connection because she was adopted, and learning about her personal family.
One of the best reads I have read this summer keep my attention from the start to finish
The outsider,unlikeable marshal,is grieving the loss of her daughter and does not seem invested in finding the missing indigenous women
I did enjoy this book and I did look into the author's history before writing this review but when it came to the parts of acting like a cop or anything that revolved around the culture or being indigenous it felt very flat and you could tell it wasn't coming from a large amount of research or understanding or even experience in the things that were written about, there were several times where the main character Carrie who is a cop immediately went to go draw their gun when there was no true safety threat such as being in someone's home to have a conversation and immediately once a blanket moved Carrie instantly drawled her gun and pointing it at the person she was talking to and the blanket when it was just a civil conversation. I got about thirty percent through the book and asked myself did someone from outside the culture write this, while the author is of indigenous decent they were not raised within that culture and that definitely showed in the writing when it came to talking about being on the rez and the cultural significance of certain things, which is surprising when that's all the book it about. The conversation around MMIW also felt flat and not properly researched there was never a discussion about the popular conversations that go along with MMIW such as human trafficking or the discrimination that goes along with being native and how that effects the case or even the red handprint that is the monolith for the movement. Carrie is not a good person, she is a terrible cop and a terrible character, she's always under the influence of something, which also would have been the perfect time to talk about statistics around indigenous people and addictions and how that is a problem that needs to be fixed and the trauma that it comes with and how that cycle continues but no. The author was adopted as an infant and was raised outside of their culture and as a mixed person who has no connection to their heritage that sucks a lot but to write a book about that culture and what it's like to be that culture felt very tone deaf. I would give this book a 3.5/5 but I was very disappointedI received this book from NetGalley as an ARC and am voluntarily leaving a review. #MaskoftheDeerWoman #NetGalley.
