Guest Review: Cold Case Reunion by Kimberley Van Meter

Fifteen years ago, Mya Jonson thought her life had ended. Pregnant and alone, she found strength in her people and the beauty of the Pacific Coast reservation. Now her lover has returned, chasing a killer, and she doesn’t dare trust him.

For Angelo Tucker, every memory is proof of his failings. Not strong enough to lead the tribe, not smart enough to catch his brother’s killer… Coming back was the last thing he wanted. Especially when he sees Mya—and feels a passion he’d long since set aside. But when a fellow FBI agent is murdered and Mya’s life is in danger, Angelo knows he must track the killer whatever the cost.or risk losing Mya forever…

Considering the fact that the Native American peoples were present in what is now known as the United States hundreds of years before ever an European foot touched American soil, it is remarkable how little most of us know about the Native peoples and their culture.  Most Americans think of Indians still as living like Hollywood has portrayed them and their lifestyle, and nothing could be farther from the truth.   It has only been in the last couple of decades that the entertainment media have made an effort to portray Native peoples more accurately, but even then the differences between the various nations and their unique lives and traditions have gone unwitnessed.  Few Americans are aware that there are more Indian reservations in the State of California than any other state in the Union.  Few understand the rivalry between the Hopi and the Navajo, the differences between the Nez Pierce and the Mountain Utes.  That being said, the author of this book has given readers a romance that is set in  contemporary times, in an Indian nation that is poor and struggling with unemployment, alcoholism, a poverty-based economy, and few resources to improve the lives of its peoples.   Set in the Pacific Northwest, just a short drive from Seattle, Washington, a small and mostly unnoticed Indian tribe struggles, not only with all the factors already mentioned, but now must deal with the recent murder of an FBI” agent as well as the unsolved murders of two teens over a decade earlier.  

At the core of the story, however, is the unresolved and semi-broken relationship between a woman who has become the tribal doctor and who staffs a medical clinic that struggles to provide good care for the people, and an FBI agent who was born and raised on the reservation, who actually stands in direct line to be their next chieftain, and who has left the tribe to live  and work in a different world than what he knew as a child and a young man.  Nothing has come of their love for one another, a love that produced a child, that was moving them toward a future together.  But Angelo Tucker took off, literally, without notice, with little indication of what he planned by his absence, and over time it became obvious to Mya that he was not coming back.  The lowest point in her life was when she had to deal all alone with the loss of their baby.  How do two people even face each other much less find a way back to one another when there is that kind of betrayal, loss, disappointment, hurt, and nearly two decades of time separating them?  It is this that forms the central crisis in the story.

The strength of this novel is not only in the main characters and their dilemma, but in the range of secondary characters who give this story depth and breadth, who expand the awareness of the reader beyond just the love story or the murders, but help establish the realities of life on the reservation and the kinds of attitudes that separate Indian peoples from non-Native peoples.   This is one of those wonderful novels that teaches as much as it entertains, stimulates the mind as all good mysteries do, and allows the reader to enter into another culture and reality that is just as real for them as our lifestyle is for us.  It is also a story that points out the truth that often the only way to reach one resolution–solving the three murders–is to join forces with the very people who are involved in the other unresolved situation–the failed relationship between Mya and Angelo.  

For Angelo, coming back was the last thing he wanted to do, not only because of his failure toward Mya, but knowing the resentment of his family, friends and neighbors for his abandoning them 15 years earlier.  Mya is his only hope because they look upon her and her work with them as a good thing, accepting her as important to the tribe, and thus worthy of their trust, even though even that trust is sometimes overshadowed by their resentment of Angelo.  It is also through the assistance of Angelo’s FBI partner, largely missing from the immediate action of the story, that the clues and the bits and pieces of information, even clues of the two teen murders that have gone “cold,” that things began to come together so that a trail to the murderer could be traced.  But there is still the unresolved issues between Mya and Angelo.

Readers will find a finely crafted romance with all its ups and downs set in the midst of the tension caused by seeking truth about the three murders.  Ms Van Meter has managed to put the two genres together and come out with a story that keeps the reader’s interest from start to finish.  There is deep friendship here as Mya’s friends and family surround her, seeking to protect her from a renewal of the hurt she had to live through 15 years earlier.  There are strong personalities and a whole host of people who are all different and who are strong, independent, out-spoken, and who demonstrate the scars and attitudes of a people who have borne the brunt of prejudice and distrust, and a long deprivation from an equal share in the best this country has to offer its citizens.  That’s not a political statement so much as an observation of reality.  It plays heavily in this story.  Yet underneath it all there is that deep sense of community, a people who are linked by land and tradition, stories and rituals, and a deeply held belief in their cosmic place in the total scheme of human existence.  It’s not overtly spoken so much as inferred.   But most of these kinds of bonds are not overt anyway.

There is so much to like in this book.  If you are looking for a new novel that combines a good love story with some good cold case solving, then this is for you.  I think it is just a terrific read.

I give it a rating of 4.25 out of 5.

You can read more from Judith at Dr J’s Book Place.