Mask of the Deer Woman by Laurie L. Dove
“Here she was. Day three. Standing in front of a rickety mobile home on a dusty reservation where she didn’t belong, working a job she didn’t want, sure she wasn’t ready to face a fuming mother convinced her daughter was missing.”
In Laurie L. Dove’s Mask of the Deer Woman, Carrie Starr has hit rock bottom. A former Chicago police officer, she lost her job after her daughter was murdered and she emptied her gun into the back of the fleeing man she held responsible. Now, drinking and toking just to get through the day, she’s started the only job she could find, as tribal marshal on the reservation where her father once lived.
It’s an impossible job – nearly fifty-eight thousand acres to cover, plus the stack of dusty cold case boxes she’s been assigned to clear, the cases of Indigenous girls who have vanished: “How was she supposed to save these girls when she hadn’t even been able to save her own?”
But then another girl disappears, a grad student named Chenoa Cloud, and Chenoa’s mother just will not let it be. Carrie Starr had planned to do the bare minimum, “just hang on until she knew what to do next, if there was a next,” but despite herself, she finds herself drawn in, asking questions, examining evidence, cross-checking those boxes of cold cases.
Gradually, a picture starts to emerge, but Carrie has no idea what she has gotten into. There are forces out there with very powerful reasons for making sure she never discovers the truth. And there are other forces, as well, only far less easily explained, such as the woman with antlers who keeps haunting her. That is the Deer Woman, Chenoa’s grandmother Lucy explains, a figure of vengeance who punishes those who prey on innocence.
But is Deer Woman there to help – or to exact retribution? The answer, when it comes, will be like nothing Carrie has ever known.
Mask of the Deer Woman is an astonishingly effective thriller, filled with complex characters, urgent suspense, a vivid sense of the land, and genuine mystery. It is also a book that casts light on the very real silent epidemic of missing and murdered Indigenous women. “They’re all twice gone,” Lucy tells Carrie. “Once in real life and once in the news.”
Laurie Dove has struggled with her own past, as an Indigenous baby adopted by white parents, and it contributed to the spark that produced Mask of the Deer Woman:
“As with most things in my life, it started with reading a book. I read Tommy Orange’s There There and discovered in the specific experiences of his characters — who were, in some cases, grappling with a generational disconnection from a collective Indigenous past — a complicated uncertainty in which I recognized myself. How could I, an Indigenous woman adopted some fifty years ago and living on the Great Plains, relate so strongly to teenage boys living in L.A.? It seemed so unlikely, and yet I did relate. I saw myself in this book, began thinking about how a reconnection would potentially play out in my own life. I explored this concept, fictionally, in Mask of the Deer Woman.
“Around the time I read There There, I was enrolled in a suspense-writing course and a character — Carrie Starr — sprang to life when I wrote a short story. I was asked to start the short story by writing the ending, and there she appeared. When the story was complete, I knew there was more to its life, so I deconstructed it and used it as the initial framework for Mask of the Deer Woman. The ending that I wrote for the book, even though there were a few changes, is largely the ending I wrote to that first short story.”
She knew she had to do more research, though:
“One of my favorite things is learning something new by reading fiction because the author has woven pertinent research into the novel. I knew from the outset that I wanted to anchor this story to the real-life issue of missing and murdered Indigenous women, which is a national public health crisis. My hope is that Mask of the Deer Woman plays a part in building awareness about this crisis.
“In my research, I discovered shocking statistics regarding missing and murdered Indigenous women, and as a journalist, I realized that neither these statistics nor the individual cases of missing and murdered women receive the coverage or analysis that is warranted.
“The third — third! — leading cause of death for Indigenous women and girls, according to the Centers for Disease Control, is murder; most of the perpetrators or suspects are non-Native. And, there are an estimated 5,500 Indigenous women who are currently missing, according to the most recent data released by the FBI’s National Crime Information Center. To further complicate matters, NamUs, a project of the U.S. Department of Justice, reports a different number of missing Indigenous women: 261. In addition to data discrepancies such as these, both agencies’ numbers represent a significant undercount in the number of missing Indigenous women. Jurisdictional issues and gaps in mandatory reporting between federal, state, local and tribal law enforcement agencies exist. The total number of missing or murdered Indigenous women is unknown and is believed to be much higher than the reported figures.
“These data tracking issues are compounded by a growing body of evidence that demonstrates that missing or murdered Indigenous women do not draw the same amount or quality of news coverage as their white counterparts. In Mask of the Deer Woman, it’s something I refer to as ‘twice gone.’ Missing Indigenous women disappear twice: once in real life and once in the news. ‘Twice gone’ was, in fact, the working title of this book.”
Many people may already be familiar with the Deer Woman from her indelible presence in the television series Reservation Dogs. Writers such as Nick Medina, David Heska Wanbli Weiden, and Ramona Emerson have also started making striking contributions to Indigenous crime fiction. Why does Dove think this is all happening now?
“Thank you for bringing up some of my favorite authors! I’m also a big fan of Reservation Dogs (because who isn’t?!). I have read all the books written by David Heska Wanbli Weiden, Ramona Emerson (currently waiting for my copy of Exposure to arrive!) and Nick Medina. Nick was so incredibly generous to be an early reader of Mask of the Deer Woman and to share his thoughts about the book. To these authors, I would add Deborah J. Ledford, Vanessa Lillie, Danica Nava, Morgen Talty, and Oscar Hokeah, among my treasured favorites. Joy Harjo and Louise Erdrich have been inspirations, and I will read anything by Stephen Graham Jones or Angeline Boulley. It is gratifying to witness a rising interest in Indigenous literature, to witness an upswell in the vast repository of Indigenous stories waiting to be shared with the wider world.
“Deer Woman was a pivotal part of my novel, but Deer Woman exists for many people in many places. Within about thirty minutes of my hometown in Kansas, Deer Woman appears with some frequency at a country cemetery and lives in the conversations of those who have seen her. Deer Woman has been witnessed many times throughout Oklahoma, particularly in the northeast corner of the state, which is where the book takes place. Deer Woman has long lived in the consciousness of Oklahoma residents, some of whom are relatives with which I spent long summer visits as a child.
“Deer Woman existed long before my story was written and she will exist long after I am gone. And Deer Woman is not alone. There are many such creatures across the Plains region that exist at the intersection of myth and reality, and I am excited to explore more folklore in my future books.”
The book is full of sharp touches. Everybody has a different writing process. I asked Dove about hers:
“First, I need to tell you that I am obsessed with writers’ routines. It’s a bit voyeuristic, but my ears always perk up when I hear other authors asked about their writing routines. I like to imagine myself living them out. A lawyer who writes only seasonally after morning swims off the Amalfi coast. An author who writes about racehorses and murder but talks through troublesome plot points with his family at the dinner table. One who awakens at 5 a.m., writes until mid-morning and then takes the dog on a long walk. I’m endlessly fascinated. Each routine feels like an alternate life I could potentially live.
“My routine is, well, less routine, shall we say? I do try to write every day, but I also spend a lot of time thinking about my characters while I do other, unrelated things. I start every story by getting to know the characters and asking many ‘what if’ questions, and after a while I find myself understanding what each character would — or would not — do in some pretty difficult situations. I especially love it when the answers to ‘what if’ questions end up surprising me.
“It also helps that I was raised on a working farm, which was a boost to my internal life. There were always chores that needed done, but with my hands busy, my mind was free to wander. Sometimes I would work in the fields, driving a tractor for hours, or I would spend hours riding one of the horses my dad and I were training. Looking back, I recognize this solitude was a type of mental training. I wrote a lot of stories in my head.
“My youngest daughter, quite perceptively, says I write backward. I think that may be the best way to describe it. I develop characters who each star in their own short story, then I weave their stories together into a novel.
“One consistent part of my writing routine is that I write quickly, and this too was a learned skill. The writing process so occupies my mind that I find it difficult to stop, to sleep, to think of anything else. I will typically toy around with a story for a few months, then write 60,000 to 80,000 words in a few days.”
That “learned skill” comes from many places. Dove has many years of credits as a reporter, writer, and editor: “I’ve trained my entire life to write my first novel. First, because I fell deeply, madly in love with books. I knew — always knew — that I wanted to be a writer.
“The goal was always to write a novel, but my early career veered into journalism. During my undergraduate years, I already was editor of the campus newspaper and a reporter at the local newspaper, even though the private college I attended didn’t offer any journalism courses. Unlike a lot of professions, reporting and editing does not have a clear, set path, and I think that’s one thing that drew me in: I could make of this career what I would; see how far I could go.
“The interviews I conducted, and the daily deadlines that required me to quickly translate thoughts into words felt like important work that mattered, and I found that I loved the impact of telling other people’s stories. Throughout my career, I discovered that the duality of working as a writer and as an editor sharpened my skills in both endeavors.
“I also became accustomed to conducting research, making decisions about which details were important, and interviewing people in conversational ways, all of which immensely helped my debut novel. Coming back to my original goal — to write not only one novel, but many — in mid-life has been the most satisfying, rewarding process. Honestly, I am living my biggest dream.”
That biggest dream included how she came to be published!
“I have the most interesting, nearly unbelievable story about my publishing journey. In December 2021, I happened across Berkley’s first Open Submissions Program. The window for unagented submissions was open for just a few days, so I added my manuscript to the more than 5,000 other entries Berkley received, and then put it out of my mind. This is a strategy I employed, to not consider the outcome, but the effort. I vowed to keep writing, to continue querying agents, to continue to pile up manuscripts. The outcome I wanted (traditional publishing) was largely out of my hands, but the effort to become published? That I could do.
“I just kept going.
“Then, in late April 2023, I received an email from the acquisitions team at Berkley, asking to see the full manuscript, and they subsequently made an offer. From there, I found an agent that I aligned with, and by early May 2023, we had a deal. I did the entire process backward, which is also how I write, now that I think about it. So I suppose that’s fitting.
“I will forever be indebted to Tracy Bernstein and Carly James at Berkley, and to my agent Sharon Pelletier of Dystel, Goderich & Bourret, for making the biggest dream of life come true. Carly and Tracy changed my life, and I will always adore them for it. Seriously, if they needed help moving house? I would be the first to volunteer. Car repair? Let me grab a socket wrench. Dog sitting? With pleasure, let me grab some treats.”
About Laurie L. Dove:
Laurie L. Dove is a reporter and editor whose work has appeared in numerous publications and garnered several honors for outstanding journalism. She graduated with a master’s degree in Creative Writing and Literature from Harvard University. She is an adjunct professor who currently lives and writes in Kansas.
Publish Date: January 21, 2025
Genre: Crime, Suspense, Thrillers
Author: Laurie L. Dove
Page Count: 336 pages
Publisher: Berkley
ISBN: 978-0593816103