MASK OF THE DEER WOMAN by Laurie L. Dove

This is a story about a woman named Carrie Starr who is struggling to deal with the passing of her daughter, as well as her actions before and after. She is also learning about her own Indigenous identity and past as she takes a job as a BIA officer in the fictional Saliquaw Nation. A place where the community is often overlooked and many from the nearby town are looking forward to an oil company coming in to profit off the land. Starr's first case is about a young Indigenous woman who is missing and her mother is frustrated with no one wanting to help. Starr must work through her own prejudices and grief to figure out what's going on and hope she's not too late. While I quite enjoyed this story after going through a bunch of books I wasn't in the mood for, it is important to note that the main character is messy with plenty of drug and alcohol use and doesn't experience a lot growth by the end of the book. There is a happy ending for some characters, but not really for the MC.