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.
1970s: It’s spring in the Red River Valley and Cash Blackbear is doing field work for a local farmer—until she
finds him dead on the kitchen floor of the property’s rented farmhouse. The tenant, a Native field laborer, and
his wife are nowhere to be found, but Cash finds 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 can’t deny her intuitive abilities: she is suspicious of the farmer’s grieving widow,
who offers to take in Shawnee temporarily. While Cash is scouring White Earth Reservation for Shawnee’s
missing mother—whom Cash wants to find before the girl is put in the foster system—another 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 women’s liberation.
Story Locale:Minnesota, 1970s
Series Overview: Cash Blackbear is a young Ojibwe woman whose visions and grit help her solve brutal crimes
in the 1970s in the Red River Valley.