Readers on the hunt for a different spin on rural crime fiction should turn their sights to the ‘Cash Blackbear’ series from Native American author Marcie R Rendon. Set among the grain and sugar beet fields and small towns of North Dakota and Minnesota during the Vietnam War, it centres on a tough young Ojibwe woman who’s survived tragedy and foster care and now drives trucks, hustles at pool, and occasionally helps solve crimes.
It’s late summer 1970 and Renee ‘Cash’ Blackbear is 19 years old but has lived more than most twice her age: torn from her reservation as a youngster, surviving the car wreck that killed her mother, and bounced around white foster families who saw her as unpaid labour more than a kid to be cared for. She sees things differently, including waking dreams. Her sole friend, Sheriff Wheaton, pulled her from the wreck of the car then later helped her escape the wreck of the foster care system. When Wheaton is called to the body of a native man found on the Minnesota side of the Red River, Cash follows her vision to the Red Lake Reservation, then inserts herself into a dangerous investigation.
In her first crime novel Rendon delivers much more than a murder mystery, using a character-centric tale to also explore some of the prejudices and injustices faced by Native Americans. A very good read that introduces a fantastic main character.
Reviewed by Craig Sisterson
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Marcie R Rendon is an enrolled member of the White Earth Nation, author, playwright, poet, and freelance writer. Also a community arts activist, Rendon supports other native artists / writers / creators to pursue their art, and is a speaker for colleges and community groups on Native issues, leadership, writing.
She is an award-winning author of a fresh new murder mystery series, and also has an extensive body of fiction and nonfiction works.
The creative mind behind Raving Native Theater, Rendon has also curated community created performances such as Art Is… Creative Native Resilience, featuring three Anishinaabe performance artists, which premiered on TPT (Twin Cities Public Television), June 2019.
Rendon was recognized as a 50 over 50 Change-maker by MN AARP and POLLEN in 2018. Rendon and Diego Vazquez received a 2017 Loft Spoken Word Immersion Fellowship for their work with women incarcerated in county jails.
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