Winter Counts by David Heska Wambli Weiden

Y’all know I like crime thrillers. Also like stories set in the American west, especially those that feature Native Americans. Winter Counts is centered on the Rosebud Indian Reservation (in South Dakota). The primary character is Virgil Wounded Horse mixed-race Lakota) who works as a vigilante or “enforcer.” Familiar with the Longmire story lines? Virgil is akin to Hector. 

Crimes on the reservation typically are neglected or subject to a complicated web of tribal and federal jurisdiction limits. When local or federal law enforcement fails, the locals call on Virgil to deliver justice denied.

Reservation issues tend to revolve around property crime, minor assaults, weed, and alcohol. Until heroin starts to find its way in. His fourteen-year-old nephew, Nathan, gets involved with the heroin and is hospitalized after an overdose. Being Nathan’s guardian, (after the death of his sister) Virgil sets out to find the source and how the drug is entering their world. A former girlfriend, Marie Short Bear, re-enters Virgil’s life and gets pulled into the search for the bad guys.

The investigation leads Virgil well beyond the reservation into Denver where he uncovers connections between different criminal organizations. Tracking the trafficking routes, Virgil uncovers connections to reservation politics, tribal power, and the chance that people he knows the reservation contact where he has to confront these outside threats but also his own history of anger, grief, and alcoholism (his own ‘winter counts’) that cloud his own feelings and judgements about his Lakota identity.

The Lakota tradition of winter counts involves pictorial records of significant events remembered from year to year which for Virgil are a metaphor for personal and collective memory that have shaped his life. It all descends on Virgil as he tries to stop the drug trade while dealing with his relationship with Lakota traditions and his own community.

I liked the way Weiden weaved a fast-paced thriller with a thoughtful presentation of Native American life. The reservation is more than a backdrop for the mystery; it is a central character to the story, like the way Pelecanos makes Washington, DC a critical character. On the reservation, systemic injustice, poverty, addiction, racism, cultural identity must be balanced with Lakota resilience, humor, and tradition.

An interesting book. Not perfect. A few secondary characters could’ve been fleshed out more and some of the plot could be paced better. But don’t let that detract anyone from picking this up. Pretty sure I’ll be checking back in with Virgil. All in all, an impressive 2020 debut effort.  

And it checks all my boxes: crime thriller, western, Native American. 

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