Book picks similar to
People of the Whistling Waters by Mardi Oakley Medawar
fiction
native-american
mystery
native
Inland
Téa Obreht - 2019
Nora is an unflinching frontierswoman awaiting the return of the men in her life--her husband, who has gone in search of water for the parched household, and her elder sons, who have vanished after an explosive argument. Nora is biding her time with her youngest son, who is convinced that a mysterious beast is stalking the land around their home.Meanwhile, Lurie is a former outlaw and a man haunted by ghosts. He sees lost souls who want something from him, and he finds reprieve from their longing in an unexpected relationship that inspires a momentous expedition across the West. The way in which Lurie's death-defying trek at last intersects with Nora's plight is the surprise and suspense of this brilliant novel.Mythical, lyrical, and sweeping in scope, Inland is grounded in true but little-known history. It showcases all of Téa Obreht's talents as a writer, as she subverts and reimagines the myths of the American West, making them entirely--and unforgettably--her own.
Black Cake
Charmaine Wilkerson - 2022
We can't choose what we inherit. But can we choose who we become?In present-day California, Eleanor Bennett's death leaves behind a puzzling inheritance for her two children, Byron and Benny: a traditional Caribbean black cake, made from a family recipe with a long history, and a voice recording. In her message, Eleanor shares a tumultuous story about a headstrong young swimmer who escapes her island home under suspicion of murder. The heartbreaking tale Eleanor unfolds, the secrets she still holds back, and the mystery of a long-lost child, challenge everything the siblings thought they knew about their lineage, and themselves.Can Byron and Benny reclaim their once-close relationship, piece together Eleanor's true history, and fulfill her final request to "share the black cake when the time is right"? Will their mother's revelations bring them back together or leave them feeling more lost than ever?Charmaine Wilkerson's debut novel is a story of how the inheritance of betrayals, secrets, memories, and even names, can shape relationships and history. Deeply evocative and beautifully written, Black Cake is an extraordinary journey through the life of a family changed forever by the choices of its matriarch.
The Lost Manuscript of Martin Taylor Harrison
Stephen Bly - 1995
But the real challenge is the cowboy who's guiding her to it.
Harlem Shuffle
Colson Whitehead - 2021
He and his wife Elizabeth are expecting their second child, and if her parents on Striver’s Row don’t approve of him or their cramped apartment across from the subway tracks, it’s still home. Few people know he descends from a line of uptown hoods and crooks, and that his façade of normalcy has more than a few cracks in it. Cracks that are getting bigger all the time. Cash is tight, especially with all those installment-plan sofas, so if his cousin Freddie occasionally drops off the odd ring or necklace, Ray doesn’t ask where it comes from. He knows a discreet jeweler downtown who doesn’t ask questions, either. Then Freddie falls in with a crew who plan to rob the Hotel Theresa—the “Waldorf of Harlem”—and volunteers Ray’s services as the fence. The heist doesn’t go as planned; they rarely do. Now Ray has a new clientele, one made up of shady cops, vicious local gangsters, two-bit pornographers, and other assorted Harlem lowlifes. Thus begins the internal tussle between Ray the striver and Ray the crook. As Ray navigates this double life, he begins to see who actually pulls the strings in Harlem. Can Ray avoid getting killed, save his cousin, and grab his share of the big score, all while maintaining his reputation as the go-to source for all your quality home furniture needs? Harlem Shuffle’s ingenious story plays out in a beautifully recreated New York City of the early 1960s. It’s a family saga masquerading as a crime novel, a hilarious morality play, a social novel about race and power, and ultimately a love letter to Harlem. But mostly, it’s a joy to read, another dazzling novel from the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning Colson Whitehead.
The Other
R. Lawson Gamble - 2012
The Other evokes just that sort of rapid pace and dramatic imagery. Consider FBI Agent Zack Tolliver, the sun-washed ochre cliffs of Arizona, the body of a little blonde girl found on a remote mesa top apparently killed by a bear, the Navajo guide side-kick, the tracks that change mid-stride from animal to human, the evidence that appears to lead to a local recluse crazed by the tragic death of his wife and child. Then the wild ride from case closed to case wide open again, racing off to the deserts of California, another little blonde girl preyed upon and abandoned, and who’s doing all this, anyway? What sinister force is toying with our FBI agent?
The Eagle Catcher
Margaret Coel - 1995
But Father John O'Malley, pastor of St. Francis Mission, and Vicky Holden, the Arapaho lawyer, do not believe the young man capable of murder. Together they set out to find the real murderer and clear Anthony's name.The trail that Father John and Vicky follow winds across the high plains of the Wind River Reservation into Arapaho homes and community centers and into the fraud-infested world of Indian oil and land deals. Eventually it leads to the past—the Old Time—when the Arapahos were forced from their homes on the Great Plains and sent to the reservation.There in the Old Time, Father John and Vicky discover a crime so heinous that someone was willing to commit murder more than a hundred years later to keep it hidden. As they close in a killer who does not hesitate to kill again, they discover they have become the next targets...Critics have praised The Eagle Catcher as a tightly crafted mystery that blends Native American culture and history with contemporary issues and fast-paced action. It introduced two intelligent, compassionate sleuths: Father John O'Malley, S.J., a history scholar and recovering alcoholic, exiled to an Indian mission on the Great Plains, and Vicky Holden, an attorney who, after ten years in the outside world, has returned to the reservation to help her people.
The Sue Grafton Collection: The Kinsey Millhone Novels
Sue Grafton - 2014
The Sue Grafton Collection: The Kinsey Millhone Novels (Books A-O)The first 15 books in Sue Grafton's Kinsey Millhone mysteries are now available in one collection! From the sensational blockbuster A is for Alibi to the thrilling case in O is for Outlaw, you won't want to miss a page.
The Girls
Emma Cline - 2016
At the start of summer, a lonely and thoughtful teenager, Evie Boyd, sees a group of girls in the park, and is immediately caught by their freedom, their careless dress, their dangerous aura of abandon. Soon, Evie is in thrall to Suzanne, a mesmerizing older girl, and is drawn into the circle of a soon-to-be infamous cult and the man who is its charismatic leader. Hidden in the hills, their sprawling ranch is eerie and run down, but to Evie, it is exotic, thrilling, charged—a place where she feels desperate to be accepted. As she spends more time away from her mother and the rhythms of her daily life, and as her obsession with Suzanne intensifies, Evie does not realize she is coming closer and closer to unthinkable violence, and to that moment in a girl’s life when everything can go horribly wrong.
Ships That Pass
Shashi Deshpande - 2012
Ships That Pass tells the story of Tara and Shaan, near strangers to each other after fourteen years of being married, and Tara's sister, Radhika, recently engaged, almost on a whim, to someone she barely knows. Even as Radhika tries to understand how a once ideal marriage has come undone, and struggles with her own feelings for an older man, tragedy strikes: Tara dies in mysterious circumstances and Shaan is arrested for murder. In the aftermath, Radhika realizes that while life may seldom turn out as expected, the only hope lies in finding the courage to take one's chances. A meditation on the nature of love and marriage, this subtle novella is vintage Shashi Deshpande. '[A] mesmerizing writer. . .you can never walk away from her stories.' About the AuthorShashi Deshpande, daughter of the renowned Kannada dramatist and Sanskrit scholar Shriranga, was born in Dharwad. She studied economics in Mumbai, then moved to Bangalore, where she gained a degree in law. Her writing career began in 1970, initially with short stories, of which several volumes have been published. She is also the author of eight novels, the best known of which are That Long Silence, which won the Sahitya Akademi award and is considered a landmark in Indian writing in English; The Dark Holds No Terror; Small Remedies; Moving On; and The Country of Deceit.
The 19th Wife
David Ebershoff - 2008
It is 1875, and Ann Eliza Young has recently separated from her powerful husband, Brigham Young, prophet and leader of the Mormon Church. Expelled and an outcast, Ann Eliza embarks on a crusade to end polygamy in the United States. A rich account of a family’s polygamous history is revealed, including how a young woman became a plural wife.Soon after Ann Eliza’s story begins, a second exquisite narrative unfolds–a tale of murder involving a polygamist family in present-day Utah. Jordan Scott, a young man who was thrown out of his fundamentalist sect years earlier, must reenter the world that cast him aside in order to discover the truth behind his father’s death.And as Ann Eliza’s narrative intertwines with that of Jordan’s search, readers are pulled deeper into the mysteries of love and faith.
Night of the Coyote (The Coyote Saga, #1)
Ron Schwab - 2015
It’s now 1875, however, and there has been peace in this part of Wyoming for several years, and Ethan has settled down in the small town of Lockwood. No longer working in stealth, he is the town’s lone lawyer. When two young Sioux are lynched by a makeshift posse for a crime they may or may not have committed, Ethan knows he must act quickly to prevent a bloody retaliation from their Sioux tribe. Can he gain the trust of both his former enemy and the townspeople of Lockwood so that there is enough time to unravel the mystery of the crime and ensure justice is fairly served? In Night of the Coyote, the worlds of the old and new collide, and the clock is ticking for Ethan to prevent a further descent into violence.
Vanished
Danielle Steel - 1993
Though the couple's lives are filled with secrets, Marielle is a devoted wife and mother, and Malcolm is a man everyone admires.On the eve of Teddy's disappearance, Marielle runs into her first love, American expatriate Charles Delauney. And when Teddy is kidnapped, Charles is first blamed, then arrested. But as the search for Teddy widens, even Marielle is scrutinized by the FBI and special agent John Taylor. Suspicions and accusations mingle with terror and heartbreak as every threat, every failure, every fear, is remembered, examined, explored.During Charles Delauney's trial, a series of revalations begins to unravel the about Marielle, Charles, and Malcolm, uncovering the motives and passions controlling their lives.Vanished is a tale of guilt, desire, suspense, and of people drawn inexorably together, seeking the child who... vanished.
Queenpin
Megan Abbott - 2007
Notoriously cunning and ruthless, Gloria shows her eager young protégée the ropes, ushering her into a glittering demimonde of late-night casinos, racetracks, betting parlors, inside heists, and big, big money. Suddenly, the world is at her feet--as long as she doesn't take any chances, like falling for the wrong guy. As the roulette wheel turns, both mentor and protégée scramble to stay one step ahead of their bosses and each other.
Miles from Nowhere
Nami Mun - 2008
Her parents have crumbled under the weight of her father’s infidelity; he has left the family, and mental illness has rendered her mother nearly catatonic. So Joon, at the age of thirteen, decides she would be better off on her own, a choice that commences a harrowing and often tragic journey that exposes the painful difficulties of a life lived on the margins. Joon’s adolescent years take her from a homeless shelter to an escort club, through struggles with addiction, to jobs selling newspapers and cosmetics, committing petty crimes, and, finally, toward something resembling hope.
Divorce Horse
Craig Johnson - 2012
Still recovering from his manhunt chasing down escaped convict and sociopath Reynaud Shade in the Bighorn Mountains, Walt just can’t find the opportunity to sit back and kick off his cowboy boots. His daughter, Cady, is getting married in a few months to the brother of his under-sheriff Victoria Moretti and is in town, helping her dad ‘recuperate’ and to talk about love, life, and weddings. Meanwhile, the American Indian Days Parade and Pow Wow are attracting tourists and trouble. The pride and joy of Tommy Jefferson’s stables—and the catalyst for his marital troubles—the notorious divorce horse, has gone missing, and Jefferson, renowned Indian Relay Racer and one-time meth head, wants him back. With the help of his best friend Henry Standing Bear and his daughter, The Greatest Legal Mind Of Our Time, Walt sets off to the races.