The hunters become the hunted in this taut horror thriller by Native American author Stephen Graham Jones (Mapping the Interior). One Thanksgiving, Lewis and three friends violated tribal regulations when they gunned down nine elk on hunting grounds reserved for Blackfeet Nation elders. When the game warden caught them, the young men forfeited their hunting rights in lieu of paying a fine none of them could afford. Months later, one died in a bar fight after fleeing life on the Blackfeet reservation, but no one knew he saw an elk damage the other bar patrons' pickup trucks and run away. Ten years later, Lewis's carefully constructed life begins to unravel when he sees the young, pregnant elk cow he shot, lying on his living room floor.
By turns sardonic, suspenseful and pulse-pounding, The Only Good Indians confronts the expectations and contradictions of modern Indigenous life in a supernatural vengeance story that will leave readers satisfied though still deeply shaken. --Jaclyn Fulwood, blogger at Infinite Reads