David Heska Wanbil Weiden: Winter Counts,  Ecco / Harper Collins UK, paperback, 9780062968951

 

“Winter Counts” is set in the Rosebud Lakota Indian Reservation in South Dakota, which immediately sets it apart from your ordinary crime novel.  It is also a sobering account of modern Native American life on a reservation dealing with unemployment, alcohol, opioid and heroin addiction. 

Shortlisted for the Edgar Award for First Novel and many other prizes, Weiden created a critical, terrific story with well-drawn out, very likeable characters that stayed with me for some time.

Virgil Wounded Horse works as an enforcer on the Rosebud reservation meaning he deals out justice using violence for those who have escaped the tribal or American legal system, employed by victims or their families.  Coming from a troubled, broken family himself, he is raising his nephew Nathan after his sister’s death. 

When Nathan nearly dies of an overdose, the reservations problem becomes suddenly very personal. Hired by a tribal member to investigate the narcotic trail pointing towards the Mexican cartel in Denver, Virgil teams up with his former girlfriend Marie Short Bear who once dated one of the suspected drug dealers.  The situation becomes truly twisted, when Nathan is used as a pawn in a crooked set up facing a serious prison sentence forcing Virgil to work with the US narcotic law enforcement to get his nephew out of an impossible situation.

“Winter Counts”  is an unusual debut I enjoyed immensely.