"Marcie Rendon is writing an addictive and authentically Native crime series propelled by the irresistible Cash Blackbear—a warm, sad, sharp, funny and intuitive young Ojibwe woman. I want a shelf of Cash Blackbear novels! To my delight I have a feeling that Rendon is only getting started." —Louise Erdrich, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Night Watchman Set in 1970s Minnesota on the White Earth Reservation, Pinckley Prize–winner Marcie R. Rendon’s gripping new mystery follows Cash Blackbear, a young Ojibwe woman, as she attempts to discover the truth about the disappearances of Native girls and their newborns. A snowmelt has sent floodwaters down to the fields of the Red River Valley, dragging the body of an unidentified Native woman into the town of Ada. The only evidence the medical examiner recovers is a torn piece of paper inside her bra: a hymn written in English and Ojibwe. Cash Blackbear, a 19-year-old, tough-as-nails Ojibwe woman, sometimes uses her special abilities to help Sheriff Wheaton, her guardian, with his investigations. When Cash sees the hymn, she knows her search for justice for this anonymous victim will lead her somewhere she hasn’t been in over a decade: the White Earth Reservation, a place she once called home.   When Cash happens upon two small graves in the yard of a rural, “speak-in-tongues kinda church,” she is pulled into the lives of the pastor and his wife while yet another Native woman turns up dead and her newborn is nowhere to be found. Praise for Sinister Graves A Minnesota Book Award Finalist An MPR News Best Book of 2022 A Ms. Magazine Most Anticipated Book of 2022 A Publishers Weekly Big Indie Book of Fall A CrimeReads Most Anticipated Crime Book of Fall “Marcie Rendon is writing an addictive and authentically Native crime series propelled by the irresistible Cash Blackbear—a warm, sad, sharp, funny and intuitive young Ojibwe woman. I want a shelf of Cash Blackbear novels! To my delight I have a feeling that Rendon is only getting started.” —Louise Erdrich, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Night Watchman “[A] winning 1970s-set series.” —Sarah Weinman, The New York Times Book Review “Like Cash's life, there's a rawness and a poetic leanness to Rendon's prose. The plot is quick with no excess, building to a confrontation that's inevitable and electrifying. Rendon's writing is quick and sharp and unflinching in its honesty . . . Haunting and truly gripping.” —Carole E. Barrowman, Star Tribune “Marcie R. Rendon has me cheering on Cash Blackbear even more vociferously in her latest mystery! Marcie writes the way Anishinaabe people view the world — full of rich descriptions and layered storytelling. While confronting difficult truths about religion and the value of Indigenous lives, Marcie shares revelatory moments of Cash awakening to her own worth.” —Angeline Boulley, New York Times bestselling author of Firekeeper’s Daughter “A powerful, textured, and haunting authentically voiced noir—the kind of book only Rendon could write. The prose is visceral and impossible to ignore, with a story that is bursting with memorable, three-dimensional characters like Cash Blackbear. The best novels in our genre transport readers to new places and times through a knowing, thoughtful guide. Sinister Graves does that and so much more. This book lingers with you in the best way possible.” —Alex Segura, bestselling and acclaimed author of Secret Identity “Marcie R. Rendon pulls us into a gritty Native American noir about a rebel with a supernatural verve: Cash Blackbear. She’s as mysterious as she is deadly, and after five minutes in Cash’s presence I was intrigued and charmed. Sinister Graves is a gripping novel that digs into the sacred and unearths haunting fragments of reservation life. Rendon is a master storyteller and binds us inside the depths of our own psychological cellars, from which we may never return.” —Oscar Hokeah, author of Calling for a Blanket Dance “ Sinister Graves is a gripping, must-read mystery. The rhythm brings to mind Sue Grafton at her finest, but Cash Blackbear, the story’s beating heart, is a character all her own. She’s both fierce and vulnerable, and I’d follow her anywhere.” —Jess Lourey, Edgar-nominated author of Unspeakable Things “As a storyteller in general, Rendon is masterful. She is straightforward in her writing and plot building, avoids hyperbole, and makes you care about her characters. The violence she described in Sinister Graves is not gratuitous. Instead, through her superhero, Cash, Rendon shines a light on the actual epidemic of violence against American Indian women in the U.S.” —The Circle: Native American News and Arts “Rendon writes through an Indigenous lens . . . [She] addresses topics like Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, religion and historical trauma in a way that’s not weighed down or overbearing.” —MPR News “Absorbing . . . If you enj