HARD LIFE (AND DEATH) IN THE HEARTLAND: MARCIE R. RENDON'S BROKEN FIELD

Marcie R. Rendon's Cash Blackbear came out of the rural mystery boom after the success of C.J. Box and Craig Johnson. The headstrong young Ojibwe woman living in Minnesota's section of The Red River Valley in the seventies, who often becomes involved with crime due to her on the fringes living and visions she has that team her up with friend and and benefactor Sheriff Wheaton. The latest book, Broken Fields shows both growth in the character and writer.

Cash takes field work for Bud Borgerud to pay for college and keep the harsh memories from events from the last book, Sinister Graves, at bay. While breaking the ground to plant, she notices Bud's car has been running for a couple of hours outside the small house Bud rents to a couple, The Patterson's. When she goes in to check, she discovers two things- the murdered body of Bud Borgerud and Shawnee, a little girl so traumatized she can only speak her name. The Patterson's are nowhere. Bud's widow offers to take the girl in, but Cash puts her high on the suspect list. With time against her, she has to help Wheaton nab the killer and find Shawnee's mother before the child is placed in foster care.

Rendon delivers many aspects we love about the subgenre, particularly with the relationship that the protagonist has with the setting. The elements of the Red River dominate, growing crops and tough people. Rendon skillfully renders the stickiness of the humid air, the bite of the wind, burn of the sun, and fatigue of a long country drive as well as Cash's strength and acceptance when dealing with them. She has connected to the community of this place than just surviving in as she did in the first book The Red River Murders. She has warmed more to the people she trusts like Wheaton and Jonesy. an Ojibwe elder who shares her gift.and helps guide her with it. The walls of her foster experience are lowering as she connects with more people. At times she feels she is betraying some these folks to protect Shawnee.

A great part of Blackbear is her ability of being a pool shark. Rendon puts it use in this book. She describes her games in accurate and entertaining fashion. Cash reads people by playing pool with them. Hopefully rendon will find a mystery she can fully center a mystery around this aspect of her.

Broken Field's provides as much suspense in the choices and actions of Cash Blackbear as the the mystery Wheaton and she are working. Like the Red River Valley, she is tough and enduring I'm curious to see where she goes in future books, especially if she keeps a pool cure around.