In Reservation Revenge by Paty Jager, Shandra Higheagle wakes up one night from a dream of her grandmother crying and soon gets a phone call from her Aunt Jo, of Shandra’s Native American side of the family. Shandra’s college-age cousin, Coop, has had an arrest warrant made out for him for murder. He went to a party the night before at the local lake. There Arthur Randall, a member of the family that has been feuding with the Higheagles for generations, tried to assault Coop’s girlfriend, Sandy Williams, ripping her shirt open, leading to Coop’s punching Arthur. The next morning, Arthur was found dead, and the police put out a warrant to arrest Coop.
Shandra hurries to her family’s side and determines to get to the truth of the case. Along with her cousin, Velma, whom the locals fear but are willing to talk to, Shandra interviews each person who could know something about the situation. It all leads to more and more clues, leading Det. Ryan Greer to join his girlfriend at the reservation in Washington.
I have enjoyed this whole series since the first book came to audio, and it seems to improve with each new edition. Jager is good at the bait and switch, first making the book seem to have one solution before throwing in another. The plot has fascinating angles to it, with a great setting of the Native reservation and the challenges of life on it. We see the need for greater educational opportunities among Native Americans and also the problems of drinking, drugs, and teenage pregnancy.
The characters in Reservation Revenge draw us to them and make us want to continue our peep into their lives. We eagerly cheer for Shandra and then for her and Ryan to succeed in their romantic relationship. But we also enjoy the visit with Shandra’s relatives, with whom Shandra was reunited in an earlier book. Even though she was reared to have nothing to do with her father’s family, the Native American side of her heritage, Shandra discovers that this family is her true family, and she shows her loyalty to the family by doing all she can to help them in their trouble.
Ann M. Thompson performs the audio edition of this book. I like the unique tone of Thompson’s voice and the voices she uses for the various characters. The accent used for Shandra is a little bit exotic sounding, with a slight lilt to it. Thompson seems ideal for this role.
I thoroughly enjoyed Reservation Revenge as much as the other books in this series. It has a clever, exciting plot and highly desirable characters that add to the appeal of the book in its total. I give the book five stars.
Disclaimer: I received this book for free from the author, but that had no effect on the content of my review.
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