Laurie Dove’s debut novel, Mask of the Deer Woman, is a mystery centering on the many missing and murdered indigenous women who have vanished throughout the southwest and beyond. There have been several books on this topic, recently William Kent Krueger’s Spirit Crossing and Vanessa Lillie’s Blood Sisters, as well as a searing television show, True Detective: Night Country. Dove frames her story with a strong and troubled female character. Carrie Starr, an ex-Chicago cop, has made her way to her long ago childhood home, Oklahoma, where she has ties to the rez and is the newly appointed Federal Marshal for the BIA (Bureau of Indian Affairs).

Working through a miasma of grief – Carrie has lost her own daughter – as well as working through her childhood memories and connections, Starr is hardly an efficient officer when she arrives at what is probably her last chance job. She’s unfocused, drinking, and smoking weed. When she arrives, she’s almost immediately approached by a mother whose daughter has joined the ranks of the missing, and who has been dismissed. Her daughter, Chenoa, was a promising grad student who may have discovered an endangered beetle on lands slated for development and fracking.

There are many other missing girls and Starr eventually begins to search through the file boxes that line her office, discovering old cases and in some of them, a connection. This is what I would call an emotional thriller (much like Krueger’s and Lillie’s books). Because the framing device is a grieving woman who must power through her grief to get to the job at hand, it tilts the story a bit. While as a reader you’re pretty sure she’s going to right herself, writer Dove still manages to make this a bit of a question.

The mystery portion of the novel is part political corruption, part ticking clock thriller, and the discovery of how the two threads might be related is the story of the novel. Meanwhile, Dove effectively paints a picture of the pain of those left behind, as well as the parent’s frustration in getting law enforcement to take them seriously. Chenoa’s mother is a true force of nature, as is her ancient grandmother – swathed in blankets and making pronouncements from her chair – and little by little, Carrie again learns to listen.

She’s also guided by the “Deer Woman,” a spirit that appears with hooves and antlers and who seems to be leading Carrie when she most needs a guide. The Deer Woman seems to be protective of the missing women, and malevolent toward whatever forces made them disappear. As Carrie’s fog of grief begins to clear she allows herself to think she can at least save this one girl, even though the body of another girl has turned up in the course of her investigation.

I loved the setting and the characters in this novel and I thought Carrie’s journey through grief was both provocative and moving. I was slightly disappointed in the resolution which in one way was a huge twist but in another was pretty conventional. However, the writing and characters would bring me back for another investigation with Carrie Starr.

I have only learned what the Deer Woman was just recently, and when I saw that this book was taking the myth and centering it around missing Indigenous women, I put this on my to-read right then and there.

Sadly, this book did not live to that hype.

The pacing is slower than a snail's, and it's due to there being POVs from multiple side characters and Starr's ability to properly function as a good detective. I believe the other POVs were provided in order to give more depth to the mystery, but it felt disjointed, clunky, and it ruined the reveal of the villain because it made it so obvious. Plus, Starr could have found a lot of this stuff out on her own if she was more abrasive and focused, but due to her alcoholism, smoking, grief, and self-hatred of her mixed Native identity, she's not giving the proper attention to the case until the last third or so of the book. It also doesn't help that the other side characters keep telling her that her detective skills suck. Granted, they don't know what she's going through, but I have to agree that she was not the right person for this job.

The Deer Woman didn't play a huge role, either. She kept haunting Starr both in a literal and metaphorical sense. The story did give us cool lore about her that connected to the larger theme of the missing Indigenous women, but I feel like she could have been more of a physical presence, like the righteous monster she is and represents.

One thing I did give this book was the attention Dove gave to the issues surrounding missing Indigenous women in the narrative. Showing a perspective from a Native woman who was a cop provided some interesting takes, too, though I wish it went further in depth than what was shown.

All in all, this story had so much good potential, but it was mostly lost due to the lack of focus. I do hope Dove's writing improves, but I dunno if I'll read whatever she may come out with next.

» READ IF YOU «
👤 love a complex, flawed protagonist
🔍 enjoy suspenseful mysteries with depth
🦌 kinda love the concept of a vigilante who preys on men

» SYNOPSIS «
After the murder of her daughter, detective Carrie Starr finds herself on her father’s reservation as the new tribal marshal. Tasked with investigating the disappearances of young Indigenous women, including the recent disappearance of college student Chenoa, Starr confronts her own grief while navigating a community rife with secrets. Haunted by visions of the Deer Woman—a figure from her father’s stories—Starr must decipher whether this spirit is a guide or a harbinger of vengeance as she delves deeper into the mysteries surrounding her.

» REVIEW «
This story was a compelling blend of mystery and character study that kept me engaged from start to finish. Starr is richly developed — a woman grappling with personal demons, while striving to bring justice to her new community. The inclusion of Indigenous folklore, particularly — MY QUEEN — Deer Woman, added some deliciously dark paranormal vibes to the story.

I am hopeful for a Carrie Starr continuation, because I really enjoyed her growth and there’s plenty more to explore in the rest of the characters! Junior, my man! Overall, it’s a thought-provoking read that sheds light on important issues within Indigenous communities.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Mask of the Deer Woman follows Carrie Starr, an alcoholic, indigenous LEO who moves to the rez as their BIA Marshall.
As far as Carrie knows has never had anything to do with the rez, but she has heard stories from her (now dead) father about both his childhood there and some indigenous traditions and folklore.

Carrie's daughter was murdered and a string of subsequent events led to her losing her job and taking the Marshall job, in another state, on a rez she has no memory of ever having been to.

The story tackles themes of corrupt local government, reservation poverty and forced relocation. The central theme is the very real issue of missing and murdered indigenous women falling through the cracks and turning in to cold case files. Starr herself even refuses to take a missing person's case seriously, even after another woman turns up murdere. It's only after going through several cold case files, hearing that the chief's daughter has been missing for 10 years (Starr assumes murdered) and then realising the missing woman is likely still on the reservation after all that she suddenly starts taking the issue seriously. Even after that she spends a period of time wanting to run away from it all.
Starr, being an alcoholic, is barely sober once throughout, she drink drives, drinks whilst actually driving more than once, gets high at work, crashes her work vehicle drunk, pulls a gun on two people whilst drunk at work and is generally an asshole who makes bad decisions. And yet, nobody even questions her at all about her substance abuse, not even anyone off reservation who might be less inclined to turn a blind eye. I found this very hard to believe.
Starr also has bouts of rage and severe impatience for not very plausible reasons. She loses focus and misses entire conversations. Even occasionally she comes to in a completely different place doing something else with no recollection of how she got there. Which seems rather worse than weed or alcohol abuse, this is never really explained as anything more than booze. She also hallucinates a lot and yet seemingly nobody around her notices anything is wrong.

Despite all this, I found Carrie Starr to be kind of flat as a character for the first half of the book. Not one character is likeable and id say the main characters arent particularly relatable either. Things do pick up and become more interesting in the second half just as the author starts to seriously explore the crisis of missing indigenous women and how they are "twice disappeared". The last 40 pages are the best part of the book and the meat of the story. But the ending isn't the most satisfying and felt a little bit forced and unconvincing. The killer is very obvious from the second time they come up in the story. The red herrings are also very obvious even though the author tries to keep one of them as a convincing suspect until the end.

Overall this book was OK, I'd have loved to see more of the folklore aspect utilised and I don't think that the government corruption subplot really added much either. I would read a second book if it had more folklore and focused more on the reservation and it's people. I think this book tried to do a little too much all at once for my tastes but the themes were interesting.

Carrie just moved from Chicago to northern Oklahoma for a new job as a tribal marshal for a reservation. She expects to be researching old cases of missing women from the reservation but immediately gets involved in a new case with a missing college woman named Chenoa. When talking to the Chenoa's family, she hears a legend about the deer woman who takes vengeance on men who don't treat women well. Carrie is at first an unlikeable character, she is constantly, drinking even on the job, and doesn't take the college girl's disappearance seriously, thinking she's off somewhere with a friend. Also the story hints as to why she left Chicago and how something bad happened to her daughter. I liked that the story show the struggles that affect people who live on reservations, the lack of good paying jobs and the poverty they often experience. The setting of a small reservation near the Kansas/Oklahoma border is unique. I wish Carrie's reasons for taking the job in Oklahoma were explained earlier in the story, it would have made the reader more sympathetic to her questionable choices.

"Mask of the Deer Woman" is Laurie L. Dove's debut novel. I haven't
stopped thinking about it since I read it.

Struggling after her daughter's death, Carrie Starr (our protagonist)moves from Chicago to the reservation where her father grew up. There, she is hired as tribal marshal while she tries to heal from her past. When a college girl goes missing from the reservation, Starr's investigation reveals a larger and more complicated mystery than expected.

Dove's use of the story of Deer Woman to confront the issue of missing and murdered indigenous women is masterful. Her background in creative writing, social justice, and journalism shows in this novel. While a fictional story, "Mask of the Deer Woman" is rooted in very real and complex issues that indigenous communities are dealing with.

This book is more than just a thriller. It tells the story of an indigenous woman trying to solve the cases of missing indigenous women that have been ignored by local law enforcement while struggling with grief and her sense of self.

DNF. I like the premise, but the narrative felt very unfocused, because of the myriad secondary POVs (3 in six chapters), and the main one wasn’t that engrossing to begin with.

Mask of the Deer Woman by Laurie L. Dove illuminates the pressing issue of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women crisis, weaving a captivating mystery into a poignant exploration of grief, identity, and reconnection.

This intriguing debut focuses on a Chicago detective who leaves her position under a cloud and takes a job as a Marshall on the Oklahoma rez her father grew up on. She abuses alcohol, is still grieving the murder of her daughter, and is now tasked with finding a woman who has gone missing there. Turns out there are more women who have gone missing without much effort to find them. I would have liked this more if the MFC had been more likable. Hope that occurs if this becomes a series.

There's nothing wrong with an archetype or a plot that doesn't stray far from its formula, especially if a story offers something fresh besides. That's the case with Laurie L. Dove's debut novel, Mask of the Deer Woman, where familiar and new propel the story, and its detective, forward.

Carrie Starr (but don't call her Carrie) just started at her last-chance job as a marshal on the tribal reservation her father called home when an alleged missing persons case lands on her desk. Still reeling from the metaphorical hangover of her last job as a detective in Chicago and her teenage daughter's brutal murder (and the literal hangover from the alcoholism that has spiraled out of control since her daughter's death), Starr feels safe in assuming the missing woman has just wandered too far for her helicopter mother's comfort. But the discovery of a body—of a woman other than the one gone missing—leads Starr to discover how many young women have gone missing on the rez over the last several years, and how little has been done about it.

The new revelation doesn't banish Starr's demons, but it does make her run harder from them as she digs into these long-abandoned cases and leverages her experience and contacts to try to find answers. But she's not the only one standing in her own way. Other residents on the rez don't trust her, even though they knew her father. In the town just outside the reservation's borders, city officials welcome her, even as they work behind the scenes to ensure construction on an oil pipeline goes ahead as planned. And perhaps worst of all, Starr has begun to hallucinate. At least, that's the most reasonable explanation she has for why a woman with deer antlers has begun appearing before her.

Starr's character is grown in some familiar soil: a hard-drinking detective whose career and family trauma pull her in opposite directions, and she's got one last chance to prove herself before she's kicked off the force for good. Behind her taciturn exterior, though, is a more interesting and unique conflict. Starr was raised off the rez, at the insistence of her mother, but always felt incomplete ignoring her tribal half. At the same time, growing up outside the boundaries of the rez and her non-native half from her mother make her too much of an outsider to feel comfortable in her new post. Being of both worlds means she belongs to neither one, and this clash of identities gives Dove fertile ground for some terrific, nuanced characterization that takes Starr beyond her hard-boiled archetype.

Dove, who has tribal ancestry but was adopted and raised outside of a reservation, also uses Starr's ruminations on identity to provide some of the most heartfelt, and beautifully written, passages in this book. "Maybe if she'd been raised here, been part of the rez, part of an extended family tree whose broken branches remained inextricably tied to one another, she would know about caves, about ghosts, about half lives and how to cure them," Dove writes.

There's plenty of nuance leftover for many of the side characters, particularly those with prickly demeanors or shadowy pasts. There's none, however, wasted on the villains of this story, and those villains are telegraphed pretty early on. I don't mind cackling villains, though I think villains in shades of gray who are convinced of their own righteousness are more interesting. What yanked me out of the story more was how there was often no thoughtful writing left for the villains, either. Not only do Dove's villains cackle and monologue about their plans, they muse to themselves about "ungrateful plebeians" and say things like, "Au contraire!" to other villains. (No one in this novel is French.) The disjointed nature between the flowing river of words and characterizations afforded Starr and those she comes into contact with versus the gravel pit given to the villains makes Deer Woman feel at times as though it had been written by two authors taking turns, or composed of two different manuscripts shuffled together.

When Deer Woman is good, it's so very, very good. When it's not, it's...fine. But I look forward to Dove's future work, and hope her next novel lets her shine a little more consistently.

(This review will post on 21 January 2025 at 4:00 p.m. MST at https://ringreads.com/2025/01/21/despite-unevenness-deer-woman-a-compelling-read/)

Mask of the Deer Woman is about one missing girl, all missing girls. About a body of a young woman found on a rez. About a woman who lost everything but even though she wants nothing still survives. Carrie Starr is a hard character to like. She drinks whiskey on the job. Her consciousness seems to fade in and out. The reader wants her to be better but learns to accept that her ways are different but still have meaning.

3.5 stars: I liked this book. I connected to the folklore within Mask of the Deer Woman and the resilience of women. I also really appreciated that this story is centered around missing Indigenous women whose stories all too often go unheard. The story was very compelling and was a mystery that came together with a satisfying end. The FMC is complicated/multilayered and a bit difficult to understand her motives in the beginning but once her background was explained, it was easier to sympathize with her.

I want to thank Berkley Publishing Group and NetGalley for the eARC and the opportunity to read a story that represents an underrepresented group.

I liked the story line about the focus on the disappearance of indigenous women on reservations.
I honestly could not like the main character, Carrie. She drank too much and smoked too much. She wallowed in her own self pity instead of actively doing her job. She barely attempted to look for Chenoa.
The writing was good but I thought the dirty politicians should have been outed.
It sort of had the same aura of Dark Winds.

I am not typically a fan of thrillers but when a book centers around a troubled native female law enforcement officer, I am immediately sucked in.

Carrie Starr, who prefers to go by Starr, has recently returned to the reservation where her father grew up, on the Oklahoma and Kansas border. There have been a string of missing indigenous women and after disgrace at her last job in Chicago and the death of her daughter, this job with the BIA is her only option. Immediately, a mother comes in about her missing adult daughter but Starr doesn’t jump into the investigation in a way that please the mother. Struggling with alcohol and memories, Starr is also haunted by visions of the Deer Woman, a local legend of female revenge.

With plenty of twists and turns, the reader is left guessing, even while the list of suspects grows and grows, with each character having the potential to be a true creep.

The use of the legend alongside the investigation and the stark reality of life on the reservation, the reader is transported to the setting.

I highly recommend this book!

Thank you to Net Galley and Berkeley Publishing Group for the DRC! All opinions are my own!

While this novel did have an interesting premise, overall the book did not work for me.

The author included multiple points of view (I think with the intention of providing insight and backstory for secondary characters), but these resulted in a cluttered feel to the narrative rather than any depth of character. With the exception of the main character, characters throughout the story were largely one-dimensional.

The plot felt clunky as well, with the individual elements not clicking together into a cohesive whole. This was intensified with issues in clarity of the writing. I often struggled to follow what was happening in the story.

I did appreciate the issues this novel takes on, particularly the issue of indigenous women gone missing. The author brings a fresh take on this, giving an explanation in this specific story that is both believable and unique.

Thank you so much Berkley Publishing and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this eARC!
The premise of this novel was very compelling. I really appreciate the highlighting of MMIW as this continues to be an issue that does not get enough attention. The storyline did start a little slow for me and slightly confusing. However, once I got a feel for the characters and the origin story of the Deer Woman, the story began to really flow. The FMC was fairly complicated. Given her back story, it was understandable why.
Overall, I did enjoy this novel. I think its important to tell stories that bring awareness to MMIW.

Carrie Starr has just taken a job as marshal on the reservation in Oklahoma that her father came from. She's running from her past and trying to outrun her grief at the death of her seventeen-year-old daughter. She left the Chicago PD under a cloud. Now, she's self-medicating with whiskey and weed.

The BIA has hired her because so many indigenous women are missing or murdered. A dozen or so have disappeared from the reservation where Carrie is working. She arrives to find that another young woman has gone missing. Her mother is certain that foul play is involved. Carrie isn't so sure and doesn't put her all into the investigation. Then the body of another young woman is discovered which ramps up her investigation.

Meanwhile, we also hear part of the story from some other viewpoints including the town mayor and a local rancher who are both depending on an oil company deciding to do some fracking on reservation land and who might have reasons to want the first missing young woman to stay missing. She's investigating the possibility that there is a rare colony of rare beetles somewhere on the reservation. Proving it will scuttle the mayor and rancher's plans and cost them lots and lots of money.

The story was very atmospheric and introspective. It was hard reading about Carrie's grief and seeing her make bad choices. I liked the legend of the Deer Woman which infused the whole story.

This one was just OK. As someone who lived in Oklahoma for a while and taught students that lived on reservations, I have verryyy limited exposure to reservation life and won’t pretend to be an expert, but this one….i couldn’t get over HOW MUCH SHE DRANK. We learned a lot about whiskey and bourbon but the girl never picked up a water bottle? I understand a nod to prevalent alcohol abuse and all that, but it was really hard for me to be like ummm if you store whiskey under your seat you may as well also put a liter of water in there after the FIRST time you get stranded? no? Just me?

Anyway. The twist at the end got me - and I loved the corruption. If this had like one more good edit, it would be a knockout of a novel.

Book Review Mask of the Deer Woman by Laurie L. Dove

Carrie Star takes the job as Tribal Marshal out of desperation after having to leave the Chicago police force. Although her tribal connection through her father got her the job she is seen as an outsider. Instead of the cold cases she is supposed to focus on she is immediately confronted by a missing woman and that is closely followed by a murdered woman.

I loved that the book chose to solely focus on missing and murdered Indigenous women. So topical! It delves into the multitude of complicated issues surrounding MMIW; policing jurisdictions on and off reserve, policing indifference and racism that together results in a lack of investigations or delayed investigations. The difference in how the disappearance of an Indigenous woman is treated is appalling and the anger, helplessness and fear of the families was heartbreaking and painful. It left me imagining all these mothers pleading to be believed that their child is missing.

Carrie was such a messy, complex character, not your usual detective heroine. Her complicated grief over the death of her daughter added such an emotional connection to an investigation already fraught with emotion. Her initial disinterest in the job that gradually transformed, giving way to her resolve to find Chenoa was so compelling. This POV was very unique and drew you to her. Her internal battle with her otherness and disconnection from her the community and culture was fascinating, in particular her initial responses to the missing person reports where she clearly has succumbed to the racist beliefs she was raised with. Her gradual growth from resentment to longing for connection and roots was a beautiful evolution. I particularly enjoyed Chenoa’s grandmother, her wisdom and stories but also Carrie’s changed responses to the stories and her acceptance and belief in the teachings.

The additional backstory of oil rights, friction between neighbouring white community, Reserve decisions to protect the land or provide prosperity and hope to the impoverished community was very interesting and provided an added layer of intrigue and mystery. The dilemmas, fractured relationships and manipulation seemed very realistic.

The weaving of the traditional teaching of Deer Woman who seeks vengeance on behalf of women against those who injure innocence was amazing. It added important cultural elements, a unique way to express the rage of women, and to give voice to women’s stories. It also provided supernatural elements that increased the suspense and mysticism and elevated this from the usual murder mystery genre.

"To find a missing young woman, the new tribal marshal must also find herself.

At rock bottom following her daughter's death, ex-Chicago detective Carrie Starr has nowhere to go but back to her roots. Starr's father never talked much about the reservation where he was raised, but the tribe needs a new marshal as much as Starr needs a place to call home.

In the past decade, too many young women have disappeared from the rez. Some have ended up 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."

Deer Woman! YAS!