Never Name the Dead, though the first in a series, may join the ranks of Native American books along the veins of Tony Hillerman and Anne Hillerman’s Leaphorn/Chee mysteries. I was entranced by the aspects of Kiowa culture found in this novel. All her life, Mud, a biracial woman, has been neither white enough nor Kiowa enough. To cope with a failed relationship and her feelings of not fitting in, she leaves the reservation and moves to California where reshapes herself as Mae and establishes her own company. After ten years, she returns to Oklahoma in response to an enigmatic phone call from her grandfather. She leaves her business at a critical point to return home where she finds her grandfather missing and then is forced into the role of a detective. One mystery is solved, but another left hanging. hopefully leaving an opening for a second in the series.
This murder mystery is tightly woven. When I finished reading, I could scarcely believe the entire novel took place in less than twenty-four hours. She juggles multiple potential suspects, all seemingly capable of killing someone, before the reveal happens
This is not a run-of-the-mill cozy mystery. Rowell covers multiple sociological, historical, and ecological areas: authentic Kiowa cultural details, the many broken treaties with white men, the fact that Native Americans on the whole are the poorest of America’s poor, the raping of the land by oil developers, particularly frackers, and the raping of Kiowa culture by museums and artifact collectors. I look forward to the next book in the series.
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Never Name the Dead (Crooked Lane Books, November 8, 2022) is available through:
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