Firekeepers Daughter

Firekeeper's Daughter

Angeline Boulley

Holt, 2021

496 pages

Grades 10-Up

Mystery

Daunis has recently graduated from high school and is rearranging her college plans to be closer to home in order to help her mother and ailing grandmother after the tragic loss of her uncle. As the daughter of a mother from the white first-family in town and a father from the local Ojibwa community, Daunis has lived a lifetime of balancing between cultures and codeswitching. Life gets more complicated as young members of the Ojibwa community fall prey to meth addiction and are dying from overdoses. After a death hits too close to home Daunis is destroyed, finally agreeing to help the FBI in an undercover investigation to find the source of the drug's distribution. A handsome hockey playing undercover agent poses as her new love interest, gaining her further access to the team she was once a member of, and serving as a contact. Even though the relationship is all business, real feelings start emerging. Undercover work proves tricky and complicated, forcing Daunis to lie to friends and family as she works through the case, finds her identity and deals with the losses of her past. Twists, turns, and danger are around every corner. Will Daunis uncover the truth? And, most of all, will she survive the investigation?

Wow! What a debut! First time novelist, Boulley, sets the bar high with this highly readable, yet layered, novel. After long being ignored, books about indigenous cultures are trending. I figured that this novel was published to address the trend, yet when I kept seeing it starred, I began to take notice. Boulley creates a mystery set above the usual teenage fare that is both compelling and complex. I listened to the audio book and found myself catching bits and pieces whenever I had a chance and thinking about it through the course of my day. The action never stops and there are enough plot twists to delight even the most hardened mystery reader. There are a lot of characters and details to keep straight, but the author makes it all pretty clear and I was not confused. The length may turn off some teen readers, but the book reads quickly and is hard to put down. The reader will be as confused as Daunis in determining who are the good guys and who are the bad, yet it ends satisfactorily--not perfect, yet with closure and hope. At times disturbingly violent with instances of sexual abuse, this is a book for older readers and not for the faint of heart. Firekeeper's Daughter would make a great movie with it's exciting plot. So far, the best teen book I have read this year!