Audio Book Review: Carrie Starr #1

Mask of the Deer Woman by Laurie L. Dove

Read by Isabella Star LaBlanc

Publication Date: January 21, 2025

Summary from Goodreads:

To find a missing young woman, the new tribal marshal must also find herself. At rock bottom following her daughter’s murder, ex-Chicago detective Carrie Starr has nowhere to go but back to her roots. Starr’s father never talked much about the reservation that raised him, but they need a new tribal marshal as much as Starr needs a place to call home. In the last decade, too many young women have disappeared from the rez. Some dead, others just… gone. Now, local college student Chenoa Cloud is missing, and Starr falls into an investigation that leaves her drowning in memories of her daughter—the girl she failed to save. Starr feels lost in this place she thought would welcome her. And when she catches a glimpse of a figure from her father’s stories, with the body of a woman and the antlers of a deer, Starr can’t shake the feeling that the fearsome spirit is watching her, following her. What she doesn’t know is whether Deer Woman is here to guide her or to seek vengeance for the lost daughters that Starr can never bring home.

Confession:

Although it did take a bit for me to get into this audiobook, once I did I found myself invested in the story and hoping that things would work out for the missing Chenoa. The pacing of the story was a bit slow, and the narrator had a more sedate voice which made it seem slower, but the mystery was very intriguing with lots of twists and many suspects.

The reader, Isabella Star LaBlanc does a nice job bringing the character of Carrie Starr to life. Her voice leant a certain feel of authenticity to the character. Although I did find her pacing a bit slow and sedate. She does a decent job of differentiating the different characters and also giving the magical realism aspects of the story a nice spooky feel.

Like many other reviewers I found Carrie Starr very unlikable. But I understood that we were not seeing her at her best. She is still grieving for the daughter that had been murdered and was probably suffering from PTSD from her job as a Chicago cop. Much of this book dealt with her grief and how she coped with it by drinking and smoking pot which interfered with her ability to do her job. She was also working in a community which was more or less openly hostile to her, which made her job of finding suspects that much harder. I think by the end she was well on her way to healing and finding her way past her grief. It will be interesting to see how much she has grown in the next book.

The book is mostly told through Carrie’s point of view, but there are other chapters by many of the other characters. Most of these were not very likable either and many of them were responsible either directly or indirectly with the murders and disappearance of the young women on the reservation. All of them had very distinct voices, although we don’t get to know them with any real depth. I did like the chapters from both Chenoa’s and the other women on the reservation.

The mystery was well done, although the person behind the murders was perhaps revealed a bit too early in the story. I did like that there was more than one person involved in Chenoa’s disappearance. There were lots of suspects though so it did keep you guessing a bit until the end. I really liked how the author wove the stories about the Deer Woman into the plot, and the magical realism of Carrie’s encounters with her were well done. The setting of the reservation felt very realistic, especially the large open spaces. The author also did a nice job of covering many of the issues facing the native tribes today, poverty, drugs and alcohol, the lack of employment and discrimination were all worked into the story. But the sense of community and the heritage of the people on the reservation was also very prominent in the story. Overall I thought this to be a well done debut, although the pacing of the writing could use a little bit of work.

If you like mysteries with a touch of magical realism, this would be a story that would interest you. I look forward to seeing where this author goes with the next book in the series.