Authenticity tempered with humor drives new Taos Pueblo-set thriller
Jan. 12—In 2016, crime fiction writer Deborah J. Ledford was diagnosed with cancer. The treatment she underwent saved her life, but left her so depleted she couldn't do any creative writing for the next six years.
"Cancer is no fun," Ledford says of the experience.
In 2022, her friend and fellow Arizona writer Isabella Maldonado "kind of lit the fire back in me," and after signing a contract, she wrote the first draft of a new crime novel in just four months that spring.
The draft became Redemption, the first in the Eva "Lightning Dance" Duran series, which was released in September.
The novel is set on the Taos Pueblo and follows the eponymous main character, the only Native American and one of just a few female deputies in the Taos County Sheriff's Office.
details
REDEMPTION by Deborah J. Ledford, Thomas & Mercer, 2023, 365 pages
The book is the first of a two-book contract with mystery and true crime publisher Thomas & Mercer, which Ledford hopes will be extended to a trilogy. The second, titled Havoc, is scheduled for release in July.
Ledford, who is part Eastern Band Cherokee, says Thomas & Mercer was searching for a new series by a Native author at the time her creative juices started flowing again.
"The timing was just right," she says.
Ledford's first crime series also features Native American characters but is set in the Great Smoky Mountains in North Carolina, where her mother's side of the family is from. The second book in the series, Snare, took place partially on the Taos Pueblo, which is the setting she chose for her new series.
Ledford grew up in Albuquerque and is now based in Phoenix. For her second series, she wanted to focus on a Native American tribe closer to home, "but the Hillermans fully covered the Navajos," she says with a laugh.
"I wanted somewhere that I could go back and forth, and I knew that I wanted to visit and make everything as authentic as I possibly could," she says. "So I decided on New Mexico because it's kind of my old stomping grounds."
She had already done a lot of research on the Taos Pueblo for Snare and did more for her new series. Ledford says she was fortunate to be able to speak to many people on the Pueblo who shared their stories with her and answered her questions.
"If you do a deep dive on the Internet, you certainly can find everything that I've written about, but hearing the stories firsthand is fascinating," she says.
Pull Quote
Ledford says figuring out what storylines would be appropriate for her characters was an important part of her process. Redemption incorporates many issues ripped from the headlines, including opioid addiction, kidnapping of Native women, and illegal gun trafficking.
The plot centers on Eva's search for her lifelong best friend, Paloma "White Dove" Arrio, who went missing about 10 days before the novel begins, abandoning her 18-year-old son, Kai. Once a nationally recognized hoop dancer, she was badly injured coming back from a competition in a car crash that killed several fellow dancers and her Navajo husband. Grief and her injuries stopped her from performing and eventually caused her to develop an addiction to opioids. She then entered a downward spiral of stealing from friends and relatives to fuel her addiction, ultimately causing her banishment from the Pueblo.
Eva is one of the few people who hasn't given up on Paloma, and when she doesn't show up after a couple days, Eva starts to worry. Kai insists Eva use her police skills to search for his mother, even though she hasn't officially been declared a missing person. She agrees and enlists the help of her friend (and occasional lover) Cruz "Wolf Song" Romero, an officer on the Tribal police force. In the meantime, she tries to foster a relationship between Kai and his uncle Santiago, a powerful tribal official who's been burned one too many times by his sister's actions and is wary of his half-Navajo nephew.
As the search continues, several of Paloma's friends — talented artists in their own right who also fell into the trap of addiction — begin to turn up dead at locations throughout Taos. Autopsies show they died of overdoses, but the circumstances of their deaths don't add up. Eva is grateful to have the support of the sheriff, who is committed to building a rapport with the Taos Pueblo community, but she worries federal agents will get wind of what's going on and she'll be shut out of the investigation. Eva and Cruz race to find out what's behind the deaths before more victims appear — and pray the next body they find won't be Paloma's.
Ledford says she's thrilled to have re-entered the publishing world and is pleased with reactions to Redemption.
"People seem to really connect with it," she says. "I'm really, really happy with the reception I've received."
While Redemption doesn't shy away from heavy topics, it also doesn't paint a dismal portrait of Indigenous life. The lead character's sardonic wit infuses the story with plenty of humor, and instead of being battered by forces beyond their control, she and the other characters are the driving agents of the narrative.
Ledford has been writing since 2009 but says in recent years, there seems to be more of an appetite for "Native writers writing about Natives." She credited Diné author and filmmaker Ramona Emerson's novel Shutter (Soho Crime, 2022) and Cherokee Nation citizen Vanessa Lillie's novel Blood Sisters (Berkeley, 2023) for making inroads into the mystery genre.
"I think also with the success of Dark Winds and Reservation Dogs, finally people are opening their eyes up to it," she says. "We're not talking only about plight, we're not talking only about tragedies. We write about everyday things that happen to people of our own background."
It's also an opportunity to share Native cultures with people who might not otherwise learn about them or visit a reservation, Ledford says, which is why she worked hard to make sure she was representing everything about the Taos Pueblo as accurately as possible.
"I do my very, very best," she says, "to keep it real and to honor who it is I'm writing about."
