Reviewed by Linda C. Brinson

WISDOM CORNER. By David Heska Wanbli Weiden. Ecco. 312 pages. $30.

 

        I

In the old days, David Heska Wanbli Weiden tells us as his gripping new mystery novel opens, “Wisdom Corner was the place where elders would gather to tell stories and provide counsel to those in need.”

Now, as Virgil Wounded Horse, who narrates this story, observes, the old gazebo and its benches are battered, dirty, corroded and marred by graffiti. Around it are trash and wreckage, evidence of the druggies and drunks who gather there now to do whatever it is they do.

As the book progresses, we come to see the Wisdom Corner as something of a metaphor for what has happened to a once proud and functioning Native American civilization.

Virgil knows the problems on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota all too well. A Lakota, he’s spent his life there, much of it as a sort of vigilante enforcer who tries to bring justice to a society where it’s lacking. Virgil is very good at putting someone who’s been mistreating others on the ground, often with a few broken parts as a bonus.

Now Virgil, having built a better life with a good woman and his orphan nephew, is trying to put that role behind him. He’s begun to worry that he enjoys walloping bad guys a little more than he should.

And his reputation is being used against his partner, Marie Short Bear, who is running for tribal council against Mitch Gagnon, a shady character who apparently will stop at nothing to win the power he craves.

Unfortunately, the inadequate law enforcement “system” on the reservation – a mix of local and federal jurisdictions that too often fails to address crimes – keeps making Virgil feel that he must step into the fray. That necessity becomes stronger after the shocking murder of a venerated medicine man who has long been Virgil’s friend and mentor.

Weiden does a fine job of weaving information about past and present injustices and failures of the legal systems into his story, enhancing rather than slowing or burdening a thriller that is full of surprising twists and turns.

We learn more about the infamous Indian schools and shameful treatment of the children there, as well as the long record of broken treaties and promises from the U.S. government to the Native tribes. We see why many young men on the reservations, feeling that they have little chance in life, turn to crime, alcohol and drugs.

References to these injustices add to the background of Virgil’s life, helping the reader understand the dilemmas he faces as he tries to be a good person and protect those who need help without throwing his own life away. Virgil is an imperfect and very believable character.

Through it all, Weiden skillfully keeps us riveted to a developing mystery. When the truth becomes known, it is surprising but entirely credible, an example of how things may not be what they seem, even when we are pretty sure we know the truth.

Wisdom Corner is Weiden’s second mystery/thriller starring Virgil Wounded Horse. The first, Winter Counts, published in 2020, was greeted by rave reviews and a slew of literary awards.

I have not had the pleasure of reading Winter Counts, but I have now put it on my must-read list. I can attest, however,  that it is not necessary to have read the first book to thoroughly enjoy the second. David Heska Wanbli Weiden is a fine writer with much to say.

Weiden knows his subjects as well as how to write. He’s an enrolled member of the Sicangu Lakota Nation, and a professor of English and of Native American and Indigenous Studies who divides his time between New York and Colorado.