Looking For Smoke
The Reese's Book Club Pick
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4.3 • 3 Ratings
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- £5.99
Publisher Description
THE REESE WITHERSPOON BOOK CLUB PICK - A literary-thriller murder mystery, set within a Native American community for fans of Firekeeper's Daughter, Sadie and the One of Us Is Lying series by a debut own voices author
Since moving to the Blackfeet Reservation with her parents, Mara Racette has felt like an outsider, taunted by her tight-knit classmates for growing up far away. So, when a local girl includes Mara in a traditional Blackfeet Giveaway to honor her missing sister, Mara thinks she’ll finally make some friends.
Instead, a girl from the Giveaway, Samantha White Tail, is found murdered.
Because the members of the Giveaway group were the last to see Samantha alive, each becomes a person of interest in the investigation:
New-girl Mara, who hated Samantha for being particularly cruel.
Grief-stricken Loren Arnoux, who was Samantha’s best friend until her sister’s disappearance drove a wedge between them.
Class-clown Brody Clark, whose unreciprocated crush on Samantha is an open secret.
And tough-guy Eli First Kill, who has his own complicated history with Samantha.
Despite deep mistrust, the four must now take matters into their own hands and clear their names. Even though one of them may be the murderer.
In her powerful debut novel, Looking for Smoke, author K. A. Cobell (Blackfeet) weaves loss, betrayal, and complex characters into a mystery that will illuminate, surprise, and engage readers until the final word
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Not seen for months, Blackfeet teen Rayanne "Charging at Night" Arnoux seems to be another missing Indigenous girl amid a series of disappeared teens gone uninvestigated. Rayanne leaves behind her Blackfeet Reservation peer group, including her young sister Loren "Different Black Bird," Eli First Kill, Samantha White Tail, Brody Clark, and Mara Racette (who is of white and Blackfeet ancestry). But when Samantha is murdered during a celebration, and the group are the last to see her, they each become suspects. The teens soon realize, however, that there's something worse than being under suspicion; as the case progresses, connections to Rayanne's disappearance become apparent, prompting fear that Samantha's death will become another instance of unsolved crimes against Indigenous girls. Her killer must be apprehended, even if it means they're forced to solve the case themselves, and even if it means condemning one of their own. Via four alternating POVs informed by the intricacies of reservation life, Cobell highlights the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women crisis and delivers a gut-punch of an ending in this timely debut thriller that is by turns spine-tingling and emotionally raw. Ages 13–up.
