Pandemic: "Slow Bear" by Anthony Neil Smith

Pandemic: Slow Bear by Anthony Neil Smith, 2020, 9781912526673.

Two things up front:

1. Smith's novels get better and better for each subsequent work.
2. I think Smith is grouchy.

My first point up above reads rough, but you likely get the point. The guy deserves a much wider readership and it is neat to see the French translations are getting an audience.

Anyhoo. Micah "Slow Bear" Cross is a minor character from the novel Worm. He was a cop on his tribe's North Dakota reservation and lost an arm and his job in a shooting. Now he does some one armed strong-arm work and half assed investigations. Slow Bear wants to drink at the local casino and hang out at his trailer he parked in the middle-of-nowhere-prairie.

But, Micah gets involved in some nasty Reservation politics and is forced to look into a rival of the current Chief. Micah is having none of it and as you start to figure the plot will involve Micah as an undercover PI Smith turns the tables. "Turns the tables" means Micah remains himself: he does  not fucking care and says what he is thinking.

Things keep happening and Micah is left to react to trouble. This is a piss poor plot precis but that's too damn bad; we are in a pandemic. I also gave up working pandemic into the rest of that alliteration.

Comments:
1. Post oil-boom North Dakota. How are things going there now? A few years ago public schools were bursting at the seams, housing could not keep pace, fast food shops did bonzo business.
2. Bad guys who just don't care. You are either a piece of meat or a walking ATM.