Marcie R. Rendon

* WINNER OF THE PINCKLEY PRIZE FOR BEST DEBUT NOVEL *'Masterfully weaves two stories in a seamless, vivid narrative' - LOS ANGELES REVIEW OF BOOKS'A starkly beautiful piece of American noir' - TARIQ ASHKANANIMinnesota, 1971. Nineteen-year-old Renee 'Cash' Blackbear spends her days playing pool, drinking beer and driving trucks for the local wheat farmers. Bounced around foster homes like so many other Ojibwe children, Cash doesn't bother much with friends - except her guardian, Sheriff Wheaton, who's kept an eye out for her since she went into the system. When the body of a murdered Ojibwe man is found discarded in a cornfield, Wheaton asks Cash for help. The residents of the nearby Red Lake Reservation have good reason to distrust outsiders, and Cash may be the only one who can get them to talk. But racial tensions run deep along the Red River, and soon Cash isn't only searching for justice: she's fighting for her life. 'Oozes lyrical prose, an exquisite sense of place and truly authentic characters' - HEATHER CRITCHLOW'With thoughtful writing that resonates and a great protagonist. Cash Blackbear is unforgettable' - CAROLINE HULSE

1970s Minnesota. It''s spring in the Red River Valley and Cash Blackbear is doing summer field work for Bud Borgerud, a local farmer-until she finds him dead on the kitchen floor of the property''s rented farmhouse. The only possible witness to the murder is the young daughter of a Native field laborer who was renting the house. The girl, Shawnee, is too terrified to speak about what she''s witnessed, and her parents seem to have vanished. In the wake of the murder, Cash can''t deny her intuitive abilities: she is suspicious of the dead man''s grieving widow, who offers to take in Shawnee temporarily. While Cash scours the county and White Earth reservation trying to find the missing mother before the Shawnee is placed in the care of a social worker-the same woman who placed Cash in foster care a decade earlier-another body turns up. Concerned about the girl''s fate, and with the help of local Sheriff Wheaton, Cash races against the clock to figure out the truth of what happened in the farmhouse. Broken Fields is a compelling, fast read with seamlessly woven in details of rural life, the American Indian Movement, abusive farm labor practices, and women''s liberation.