Heyoka Blood — Hewitt Schlereth

In a sleepy northern Atlantic harbor, a floating village of houseboats and fishermen remains the core of the small, oil-producing American Indian nation where governance remains traditionally entirely female. Hadrian Wallace, a mixed-blood Heyoka native, spends his days writing books and inspecting boats for insurance companies, enjoying a purposefully simple life. Until the body of an old flame, Ann Summerlune, is found floating nearby.

Unable to reconcile her death and his own regrets over events of their shared past, Hadrian begins to piece together Ann's final days, from the marriage he is certain she regretted to something alarming she discovered involving local oil reserves and illegal doings. Whatever she found was something big and bad enough to get her dead. A fate, he soon discovers, that may well be his own.