Tag: Mystery

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Book: “See How They Fall” by Rachel Paris

Publishing Info: Scarlet, April 2025

Where Did I Get This Book: I received an ARC from the publicist.

Where You Can Get This Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | Indiebound

Book Description: In this compulsive debut thriller set in Sydney’s wealthiest suburbs, one detective’s investigation into a family tragedy threatens to collapse a powerful dynasty. . . .

When Skye married into the wealthy Campbell family, she thought she was entering paradise. But lately, she’s been unhappy in her marriage to Duncan and hiding a few secrets of her own as she tries to maintain a normal, happy life for their six-year-old daughter, Tilly.

Now the family patriarch, Sir Campbell Turner, has died and his three sons are set to inherit the luxury goods empire upon which he built their fortune. But plans for a seamless handover are complicated when a fourth, hitherto unknown, heir named Cody comes forward. The Turners gather for an intimate weekend retreat at an opulent seaside estate in order to meet this newcomer and figure out their next steps. With so much at stake, tempers flare and egos clash within their first few hours together. But even as the tensions rise no one could predict that their very first night would end with a shocking poisoning that leaves one family member dead and another fighting for her life.

Sergeant Mei O’Connor is assigned to investigate the incident and though her superiors are keen to close the case as swiftly as possible, the evidence just isn’t lining up. Mei already has enough on her mind as she struggles to care for her terminally ill mother and recover from her broken engagement, but she can’t help poking around the Turners, convinced that there’s more to the suspicious poisoning than a simple accident. As Mei continues to push for answers, she may just send the carefully laid dominoes of the Turner empire crashing down.

Review: Thank you to SparkPoint Studio for sending me an ARC of this novel!

Hoo boy, buckle up everyone because I have once again brought you all a novel that has scummy rich people behaving badly! Nope, this trope still hasn’t gone out of style for me, and the more frustrated I get with real world examples of this, the more cathartic I find novels that center nasty wealthy sleaze balls and show them for what they are. So of COURSE I wanted to read “See How They Fall” by Rachel Paris! I like soapy thrillers, I like dysfunctional families, and I like murder mysteries. It was bound to be a winner.

The premise is simple. The Turners, a billionaire family still reeling from the patriarch’s death a few months earlier, are gathering with their loved ones for a weekend at a summer estate, with hopes of hashing out the inheritance, while also dealing with a new surprise heir in the form of an illegitimate son of the middle son, Duncan. During the weekend, one of the brother’s wives is dead, and Duncan’s daughter Tilly is hospitalized in grave condition, both victims of arsenic poisoning. Skye, Tilly’s mom, is desperate to find out what happened, while Duncan hides her away, and Mei O’Connor, a detective assigned to the case, starts to peel back the nasty layers of this wealthy family. Our mystery is mostly who poisoned Tilly and her aunt Nina, but as we see it through Skye and Mei’s perspectives, the mystery becomes more about what the family as a whole has to hide. It’s suspenseful, it has believable twists and turns, and it has high stakes with a little girl near death, her mother becoming more unhinged as more secrets come out, and our lead investigator finding lots of dirty laundry, therein putting a target on her back as well. The Turner Family is filled with complete sociopaths, and as the story continued the more tense I became, fearful for Skye AND Mei and what they may uncover. Paris has a lot of tricks up her sleeve, and many of them were pulled off seamlessly.

I also enjoyed the dual perspectives between Skye and Mei, as both of them have some really well constructed back stories, well thought out motivations, and their two takes on the story as it is happening complement each other as they each present different clues to the reader about what is going on and who could be behind the poisonings. Skye is deeply sympathetic as her daughter lies unconscious after being poisoned, and while her husband Duncan is lying, gaslighting, and hiding something from her, and trying to keep her from finding out family business that may or may not be tied to Tilly’s attempted murder and Nina’s actual murder. I was seriously worried for Skye as well as enraged on her behalf, and Paris nails the way that the most insidious of wealthy people will manipulate even those that they purport to love if it will keep power within their grasp. Mei, on the other hand, has problems of her own, and it makes this case deeply personal, whether it’s because she is still reeling from a break up with a manipulative jerk, or because when she was a child her younger sister went missing, and she sees her sister in Tilly. I really felt for her, and if there was a series following her as a detective I would definitely read it.

Overall, “See How They Fall” is fun, addictive, and an entertaining thriller. If you like the genre, definitely seek it out.

Rating 8: Lots of reveals, lots of scandal, and two interesting character perspectives make this book an addictive thriller.

Reader’s Advisory:

“See How They Fall” isn’t on any relevant Goodreads lists as of yet, but it would fit in on the list “Novels If You Like ‘Succession'” in the Goodreads article “What To Read Based on Your Pop Culture Obsessions”.

This post may contain affiliate links for books we recommend.  Read the full disclosure here.

Book: “What Remains of Teague House” by Stacy Johns

Publishing Info: Poisoned Pen Press, April 2025

Where Did I Get This Book: I received an ARC from the publisher.

Where You Can Get This Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | Indiebound

Book Description: Three siblings reckon with the darkness hidden within their family after multiple graves are discovered behind their childhood home.

When the Rawlins family matriarch unexpectedly dies, all three adult children rush home. What they find is a house bursting with grief, dark memories surfacing around each corner, and multiple bodies buried deep in the woods. The Rawlinses want to believe these discoveries point to a crime long past. But one of the graves behind Teague House is fresh, the earth disturbed just that week—and its inhabitant is a local woman they knew.

Is the youngest Rawlins sibling with something to hide guilty of her murder? Is his sister experiencing false memories of her late father digging near the graves? Why is their aunt in such a rush to leave town after her sister’s funeral?

Enter private detective Maddie Reed, who has her own reasons for being curious about the bodies buried behind Teague House. Detective Reed sets out to unmask a killer—one she may have been hunting all her life.

Review: Thank you to Poisoned Pen Press for sending me an ARC of this novel!

Families hiding secrets are always fun types of thrillers to me. I enjoy a sub-genre of families being terrible and damaging the generations down the line, no matter WHAT the parent genre is, but when you bring murder into it as well as generational trauma that is a topic that has so many possibilities. Because of this love for that kind of drama, I was very interested in reading “What Remains of Teague House” by Stacy Johns. When family secrets involve dead bodies, old AND new, buried on the family property, things have a possibility to get juicy!

I think that some of the strongest things in this book were character based. We followed a few of the characters through third person, and in one case first person, perspective chapters, where we get to follow their parts of the mystery and see how they all fit together. We had perspectives from all three of the siblings, Sandra, Jon, and Robby, as well as past perspectives from Aunt Phil to see the background to Russ and Val (who got a single chapter at the start). I found Aunt Phil’s to be really well done and thought that it was great getting some context for her relationship with Val, giving us insight into Val as well. The sibling perspectives went from fine (Jon and Sandra) to deeply irritating (Robby. It’s by design as he’s a scumbag, but it was grating to have to read his chapters). But the best one, for me, was that of Maddie, who is an investigator who gets privy to what is happening at Teague House, and has her own reasons and connections (potentially) to one of the bodies that has been unearthed. I really enjoyed Maddie’s chapters, as not only was hers the first person perspective, but I also thought that her motivations, backstory, and arc were the most interesting. Her chapters also read like a well done procedural, and I enjoyed seeing her on the trail and getting her information from the Rawlins siblings in hopes of finding justice.

But, along with that, comes why it didn’t work as well for me as I had hoped it would. We had some good build up and pacing for a lot of the novel, but then as we started to get closer to the climax things started to go REALLY fast and felt really rushed and cobbled together. I was left scratching my head a bit about some of the reveals, feeling like some choices were made just to make things shocking without really earning it. On top of that, going back to Robby’s character from above, we had such a frustrating and grating character in this guy that I was actively turned off anytime we were following his perspective. I can usually do fine with immoral characters or people who are deeply unlikable, but that’s only if there is something a bit more interesting about them, and Robby just wasn’t interesting. Just obnoxious. These things sadly derailed my experience, and the other characters couldn’t quite compensate.

I think that “What Remains of Teague House” had its ups and downs. I definitely don’t regret reading it, but it was pretty middle of the road.

Rating 6: I like a family drama, but with some really unlikable characters and a rushed ending this one didn’t live up to my expectations.

Reader’s Advisory:

“What Remains of Teague House” isn’t on any Goodreads lists as of now, but it would fit in on “Family Secrets”.

This post may contain affiliate links for books we recommend.  Read the full disclosure here.

Book: “This Book Will Bury Me” by Ashley Winstead

Publishing Info: Sourcebooks Landmark, March 2025

Where Did I Get This Book: I received an ARC of this novel from the publisher.

Where You Can Get This Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | Indiebound

Book Description: From the bestselling author of In My Dreams I Hold a Knife and Midnight is the Darkest Hour comes a chilling, compulsive story of five amateur sleuths, whose hunt for an elusive killer catapults them into danger as the world watches.

It’s the most famous crime in modern history. But only she knows the true story.

After the unexpected death of her father, college student Jane Sharp longs for a distraction from her grief. She becomes obsessed with true crime, befriending armchair detectives who teach her how to hunt killers from afar. In this morbid internet underground, Jane finds friendship, purpose, and even glory…

So when news of the shocking deaths of three college girls in Delphine, Idaho takes the world by storm, and sleuths everywhere race to solve the crimes, Jane and her friends are determined to beat them. But the case turns out to be stranger than anyone expected. Details don’t add up, the police are cagey, and there seems to be more media hype and internet theorizing than actual evidence. When Jane and her sleuths take a step closer, they find that every answer only begs more questions. Something’s not adding up, and they begin to suspect their killer may be smarter and more prolific than any they’ve faced before. Placing themselves in the center of the story starts to feel more and more like walking into a trap…

Told one year after the astounding events that concluded the case and left the world reeling, when Jane has finally decided to break her silence about what really happened, she tells the true story of the Delphine Massacres. And what she has to confess will shock even the most seasoned true crime fans…

Review: Thank you to Sourcebooks Landmark for sending me an ARC of this novel!

I really loved Ashley Winstead’s previous novel “Midnight Is The Darkest Hour”, so much so that it made my top ten list the year it was published. I found it to be propulsive and addictive, and when I had the opportunity to read her newest book “This Book Will Bury Me” I knew that I had to take it. I was even more interested when I read the premise, as I thought that it sounded familiar, plot wise. I do enjoy thrillers that take inspiration from real life. But this one made me have to really do some introspection about that.

“This Book Will Bury Me” has a clever story structure, as it is a story within a story that has some unreliable narration and a design like it’s a tell all true crime memoir. We have Jane, a woman who, after being traumatized by her father’s sudden death when she was in her early twenties, latched onto a true crime forum and became an armchair sleuth with four other true crime aficionados. When she and this group break a case wide open, they get a lot of attention upon themselves, and then get pulled into a brutal multiple murder of some college students in Idaho (which is very clearly based on the Moscow Murders – I will talk about that in a bit). We are seeing things through the lens of a disgraced public figure trying to clear her name, which adds a mystery on top of other mysteries, and makes for a gripping narrative as we try to see if Jane and co can solve the mystery, and what happens to make them all so reviled after the fact. I found Jane to be a compelling narrator, because I found her to be incredibly sympathetic as well as incredibly maddening at times. Winstead did her due diligence of drawing out and fully backing up why Jane would have been so drawn into the world of internet crime solving, as she hasn’t had clear answers about the tragedy of her father’s natural, but incredibly traumatizing, death, and needs to find answers to other mysteries to compensate. Sure, I spotted a few twists before they were revealed, but I was having a fun enough time that it didn’t matter.

What also worked for me in this was how Winstead also takes a controversial topic like true crime, specifically internet sleuths and their assistance/meddling (depending on who you talk to) in real life cases with real life victims. Jane and her friends all seem to have the best intentions as they try to solve crimes, but it’s hard to deny that, good intentions or not, they let hubris, ego, and their own biases drive their investigations. It’s not exactly a farfetched problem given that there have been plenty of internet sleuths in real life who have put innocent people on blast and done horrific damage (I’m thinking of the Reddit Boston Marathon Bomber debacle, I’m thinking of that one TikTok woman who named a half assed theoretical suspect in the aforementioned/soon to be mentioned Moscow Murders and sent viral harassment their way ALL BASED ON TAROT READINGS, and more). I appreciated that Winstead didn’t set out to make Jane a nasty person, but a damaged person who makes some pretty big missteps, even if her intentions are pure. But it does raise a lot of questions about the people whose love of true crime goes a few steps further into actually trying to insert themselves into it, blurring the lines between a theoretical fascination and an active participant. I enjoyed that it wasn’t super black and white.

BUT. I will say that I was uncomfortable with how close and obviously ripped from the headlines this plot was to the Moscow Murders in Moscow, Idaho. Ripped from the headlines stories happen quite a bit in pop culture. “Law and Order”‘s entire franchise takes that premise and creates episodes from actual crimes that happen, for example. But I think that part of my issue here was that the initial student murders in this book felt like they were completely lifted from that specific crime, a crime that is still pretty raw and still hasn’t had true resolution or justice because the main suspect hasn’t even gone to trial yet. And I mean LIFTED. Like timelines, details of the house, details of the fallout, it felt like the first group of murdered college students in this book were carbon copies of what happened on King’s Road in 2022. Had there been some changes or tweaks it would have felt a bit better to me. For example, the second mass murder scene felt like it was inspired by Ted Bundy’s sorority house spree, but didn’t feel like I was just reading the spree with new names. On top of that, Bundy happened DECADES ago, and he was tried and convicted and executed, so the victims families had at least some sense of closure. That hasn’t happened for the families of the Moscow victims yet. So as it was it felt kind of ghoulish to me to be so close to the actrual details. Though perhaps there’s an argument to be made that it would still be ghoulish even if it had made the changes and tweaks. I guess it goes back to questions about true crime and exploitation. Which in turn may shadow the intent that I do feel like this book was going for.

SO, it’s a bit messy and complicated. As a thriller that kept me interested, I did enjoy “This Book Will Bury Me”. But, I hope that in the future authors who want to take inspiration from real victims and real crimes can make it feel a little less blatant, because if this one had done that it would have been a slam dunk. As it was, it felt murkier than I would have liked.

Rating 8: A gripping mystery with a dissection of true crime fandom gone too far, “This Book Will Bury Me” is another entertaining read from Ashley Winstead, though I am a little uneasy about how close it was to the inspiration.

Reader’s Advisory:

“This Book Will Bury Me” is included on the Goodreads list “2025 Mystery Thrillers True Crime”.

This post may contain affiliate links for books we recommend.  Read the full disclosure here.

Book: “A Girl Like Us” by Anna Sophia McLoughlin

Publishing Info: Sourcebooks Landmark, February 2025

Where Did I Get This Book: I received an ARC from the publisher.

Where You Can Get This Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | Indiebound

Book Description: Succession meets Saltburn in a crackling locked-room thriller of inconceivable wealth, unchecked power, and the secrets poised to bring a powerful family down.

It’s 2004 and former reality TV star and party girl Maya Miller has just married the most eligible bachelor on the planet: Colin Sterling, of the globally famous Sterling family whose history of aristocratic titles and land holdings rival a British royal and whose media empire is comparable to the Murdochs. To some, Maya represents the American dream. To others, a gold digger. But when Colin’s cousin Arianna, the heiress to the family’s immense fortune, is found murdered, Maya is thrust into the spotlight: first as she is revealed to be the next heiress to the fortune, and then as the prime suspect.

Swiftly, the entire Sterling family goes into lockdown at Silver House, the family’s ancestral estate in the English countryside. They’re told it’s for their own safety—but Maya becomes convinced that it’s not to keep threats out, but to keep secrets in. Now, she has no choice but to find and expose the truth hidden within the Sterling family, and why Arianna, a girl she had never met, chose her to take her place. But Maya has secrets of her own. And she knows that in order to survive the Sterlings, she’ll have to beat them at their own game.

Review: Thank you to Sourcebooks Landmark for sending me an ARC of this novel!

You’d think that with the state of EVERYTHING going on right now I would be fully turned off of books about disgusting billionaires with way too much power being full on villainous, and yet it’s still a sub-genre of thrillers that I greatly enjoy (I mean I guess we will see if that continues going forward? Maybe it the stories all end like “Ready or Not”?). Regardless of my existential dread, I picked up “A Girl Like Us” by Anna Sophia McLoughlin in hopes of a soapy and easy to digest escapist thriller with twists and turns and maybe something a little more. I got basically everything except for the last bit.

In terms of mystery, this one is fairly straight forward. We have the uber wealthy steeping in their privilege and cruelty, as well as a newcomer who is dying to fit in but has some salacious secrets of her own, and a mysterious murder and a slew of suspects. It’s the exact kind of thriller that I would associate with a day by the pool or a long plane ride, one that makes the time go fast and keeps the reader entertained. Given how billionaires are really showing their asses lately (or even being fully super villain!) I am always down for a story that puts their terribleness front and center, and with Maya being a bit of a wild card and kind of a villainess in her own ways herself it’s fun to root for a morally grey character against a backdrop of really nasty people with too much money and power. And it just adds more some really soapy moments that felt right out of an episode of “The Bold and the Beautiful” circa the early 2000s when I was watching it in the student union when I was between classes in college. I was entertained to be sure.

But as I said above, by being fairly straight forward it doesn’t really go outside the box of what I’d expect from the genre, and while it’s fun seeing two dimensional villains claw at each other, it also makes for a tale that doesn’t really stand out in the long run. There are some interesting dynamics at play as we follow the perspectives of both Maya in the present and then Arianna in the past through her journal entries, but this too just stuck to familiar pathways and formulas. None of this is a bad thing, necessarily, though I have been finding myself more intrigued and compelled with thrillers that go the extra step. Would I recommend this as a fun read? Absolutely. But that being said, it didn’t wow me in the way that some recent thrillers have.

“A Girl Like Us” is a solid thriller that checks a lot of boxes of the genre. I was entertained, but not blown away.

Rating 6: Entertaining and soapy, but it didn’t really reinvent the wheel when it comes to thrillers.

Reader’s Advisory:

“A Girl Like Us” is included in the Goodreads article “A Month-by-Month Guide to 2025’s Biggest Mysteries and Thrillers”.

This post may contain affiliate links for books we recommend.  Read the full disclosure here.

Book: “Death in the Downline” by Maria Abrams

Publishing Info: Quirk Books, January 2025

Where Did I Get This Book: I received an eARC from NetGalley.

Where You Can Get This Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | Indiebound

Book Description: It’s multi-level murder in this darkly funny mystery novel about the glamorous world of MLM “huns”—and the dangerous secrets at the top of the pyramid.

Drew thought she was destined to rise above her small New Jersey hometown and make it as a serious journalist in New York City. But now she’s back in Clearfield, pushing thirty, newly single, and living with her father.

After a chance encounter at the grocery store, she reconnects with her former best friend, Steph, who married young and never left their hometown. But Steph looks . . . good. She’s tanned, clear skinned, and glowing. She drives an expensive car and wears only name brands. What’s her secret? A multi-level marketing scheme called LuminUS that’s taken the ladies of Clearfield by storm. With nothing left to lose, Drew gets sucked into this glamorous world of downlines, sales parties, and girls’ trips.

But when a LuminUS distributor dies under mysterious circumstances, can Drew uncover the dark secret at the heart of the organization—and save her best friend—before it’s too late?

Laugh-out-loud funny and a pitch-perfect skewering of pyramid schemes, Death in the Downline is a page-turner that will have readers nodding in recognition and cheering for Drew until the cathartic conclusion.

Review: Thank you to NetGalley for sending me an eARC of this novel!

While I myself haven’t been sucked into an MLM/multilevel marketing/pyramid scheme, I know some people who have. One of whom was my grandmother! I have memories when I was a girl and we would visit my grandparents in Iowa and she would have all these Aloe Vera based skin products, be it lotion, bug spray, or analgesic heat cream for muscle aches. And confession, the heat cream was fantastic, as I used it a lot when I was playing softball and it really did the job. But it didn’t really make her any money, with her main customers being her close friends and kids. I’ve been obsessed with the scammy and manipulative nature of MLMs for awhile, and the way they suck people in and drain them for all they are worth. Because of this I was really, really excited to read “Death in the Downline” by Maria Abrams. Not only is it a murder mystery, which I am into, but a satire on MLMs?! Yes! I want it!

As a mystery I really enjoyed “Death in the Downline”. It starts with Drew, a down on her luck journalist who had to leave New York City with her tail between her legs and move back in with her father in her small hometown. She reconnects with her former best friend Steph, who seems to have a picture perfect life of wealth and luxury, seemingly all due to her ‘business’ LuminUS, a wellness brand that sells creams, supplements, and other ‘healthy’ things. Steph convinces Drew to join her ‘team’, and Drew, needing money and feeling desperate, agrees. But soon she realizes that some things about LumiUS aren’t adding up, and then a member of the team is murdered while they’re all on a conference. I love a journalist trying to break a story, and Drew is a really fun protagonist because she’s scrappy, a little sour, and gets sucked into figuring out what happened to her acquaintance and how much Steph, and LuminUS, is hiding. The mystery is well done with some good curves, but it always feels a little cozy and fizzy as we see these MLM huns going to really forced parties, sniping at each other, and scrambling to make sales even as their friend is dead. But Abrams even expands it to feel not only a little “Real Housewives”, but also to feel a little corporate conspiracy, as not only is there a murderer at hand, but also the very real potential of a shady company trying to cover its own ass in regards to its pyramid scheme. I loved the two mysteries and thought that Abrams blended them well with some fun and bitchy characters to round it all out.

But what I loved even more is how Abrams tackles the very upsetting reality that MLMs are predatory scams that target (predominantly) women of varying circumstances (be it a wish to provide for their families while feeling unable to work outside the home, or a need for money, or other circumstances of desperation or drive) and suck them dry while walking away with their money. I think about my grandmother who had all this product and not much to show for it, and the horror stories you hear about places like LulaRoe or Monat or what have you. In this book it’s LuminUS, which has taken a small town and surrounding suburbs by storm as the local economies shake and the need for money is dire for some. While Drew is more within it because she smells a story, we see other women like bestie Steph and the women on her ‘team’ who have their own reasons to join, betting their life and their investments on this sketchy product. The LuminUS lore draws from a lot of MLM inspirations and brings in not only the way that it manipulates and scams people and drives them to debt while promising riches, but also some serious questions about the lack of regulations on ‘wellness’ products that we hear about time and time again when it comes to MLMs. I loved this angle because it gave it a little more bite and could perhaps open up some reflection from potential readers who would otherwise be tricked.

I really liked “Death in the Downline”! It was cozy but also a little snide, but in a way that wasn’t off putting. I will definitely be checking out more books by Maria Abrams in the future!

Rating 8: Fun, funny, twisty, and just an all around good time, “Death in the Downline” is a witty mystery that takes on predatory MLMs and the unachievable promises they make with a dash of murder on the side.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Death in the Downline” isn’t on any Goodreads lists as of now, but it would fit in on “#Girlboss Mysteries”.

This post may contain affiliate links for books we recommend.  Read the full disclosure here.

Book: “Mask of the Deer Woman” by Laurie L. Dove

Publishing Info: Berkley, January 2025

Where Did I Get This Book: I received an eARC from the publisher via NetGalley.

Where You Can Get This Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | Indiebound

Book Description: To find a missing young woman, the new tribal marshal must also find herself. At rock bottom following her daughter’s murder, ex-Chicago detective Carrie Starr has nowhere to go but back to her roots. Starr’s father never talked much about the reservation that raised him, but they need a new tribal marshal as much as Starr needs a place to call home. In the last decade, too many young women have disappeared from the rez. Some 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.

Review: Thank you to Berkley for sending me an eARC via NetGalley!

I’m always on the lookout for more procedural mysteries. It’s a sub-genre I have enjoyed for a long time, ever since I’d watch “Law and Order” with my father in middle and high school. So when a new one comes across my radar, I am usually all in to give it a try, and “Mask of the Deer Woman” by Laurie L. Dove was no exception. I was already sold on a story about a woman law enforcement officer looking for a missing woman, but when I saw that it had an Indigenous main character and a setting on a reservation I was even more sold. Expanding the possibilities in a sub-genre is always a plus for me.

As a procedural mystery, “Mask of the Deer Woman” had a lot of moving parts that worked really well for me as a reader. Our protagonist is Carrie Starr, a former Chicago detective who has taken a job as a tribal marshal on the reservation where her father grew up. Carrie is a deeply flawed and damaged protagonist, who is still reeling from the death of her daughter Quinn and has slid into depression and substance abuse. When she has to start investigating a missing woman on the reservation, she at first thinks that it’s just another person who ran off, but the more she digs the more she starts to see patterns of many missing and murdered women, and starts connecting dots to a higher and more complicated mystery. As a main character she is at times hard to like, but I didn’t need to like her to want her to succeed, and I found her grief and trauma realistic and made her all the more complex. I also enjoyed the dissonance that she has having returned to a culture that she has so little connection to, and her return starts to bring out memories, connections to locals when they are sure how much they can trust her, and a vision of Deer Woman, a story from her culture that speaks to the violence towards women and a vengeance because of that. And that’s the big mystery here: the missing girls, with Chenoa Cloud the grad student in the present and more missing women in the past. Many people want to write them off as runaways or addicts, but it’s clear to many that that isn’t the case. Carrie starts to look into many missing women and uncovers some dark truths that have long gone ignored. It is a strong and very pertinent plot point (more on that in a bit), and I enjoyed how Dove slowly revealed her cards, and how there were intricate and more powerful pieces in play than I expected. I found it to be well plotted and very, very sad as well, given how MMIWG2S is an epidemic of violence that is too often ignored.

My favorite aspect of this book is a reflection of this point, which was the way that Dove wove in very timely and important to talk about issues that many Indigenous communities face in America today, usually due to our country’s history with colonialism and genocide and the trickle down consequences of that. Carrie has returned to her father’s community on a reservation in Oklahoma to work as a tribal marshal, and the realities the rez faces play huge parts in this book. Whether it’s the poverty the community faces, the drug and alcohol addiction that is rampant, the large number of missing and murdered women and girls in the community, and the way that local governments try to take advantage of the Indigenous people for their land and money making opportunities, specifically with oil companies trying to grab up their land. The systemic racism that the Government still holds towards Indigenous communities is a huge undercurrent in this story, and Dove finds a lot of inroads to address these themes and to connect them to the violence and mystery at the heart of the story.

I enjoyed “Mask of the Deer Woman”. I hope that Laurie L. Dove keeps writing Carrie Starr stories, because I will absolutely continue reading them.

Rating 8: Tense, well plotted, and heartbreaking. “Mask of the Deer Woman” is a solid procedural mystery that also centers very real struggles that Indigenous people in America face due to colonialism and systemic racism.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Mask of the Deer Woman” is included on the Goodreads list “Diverse Releases of 2025 – Mystery, Thriller, Horror”.