Book review of Wisdom Corner by David Heska Wanbli Weiden

Wisdom Corner sees the return of amateur sleuth Virgil Wounded Horse, a former vigilante on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota. In David Heska Wanbli Weiden’s previous novel, Winter Counts, Virgil had set his intention to walk the Red Road—leave his violent past behind and commit to a more spiritually healthy life—but in Wisdom Corner he finds that task more difficult than he expected.

When Jerome Iron Shell, a friend of Virgil’s and a respected medicine man, is brutally murdered, Virgil worries that justice will fall between the cracks of the FBI and Native police. Jerome was involved in a land reclamation project to prevent the disturbance of human remains at a former Indian boarding school. Virgil knows for a fact that the developers viewed Jerome as the primary thorn in their side.

Then there’s the 705 gang, who are looking to move in on Jerome’s nephew’s lucrative bootlegging business and openly threatening the entire family. Could the murder be retaliation for this violent conflict and territorial dispute?

Virgil has the appeal of a classic noir gumshoe. He’s a man of few words, conflicted about his own predisposition to violence, but cognizant that on a reservation with limited law enforcement, his brand of justice is in demand. He has a troubled past, but an angel on his shoulder in the form of Marie Short Bear, his girlfriend, who wants to help him turn over a new leaf.

Virgil doesn’t like or rely on technology, meaning most of his sleuthing is done the old-fashioned way: by earning the trust of people who know in the ins and outs of the reservation’s underbelly, ticking up miles on his beloved Ford truck or motorcycle as he searches for answers.

Weiden is an enrolled citizen of the Sicangu Lakota Nation, and his writing is rich with cultural detail from food to ceremonies to reservation slang. His style is terse but immersive, and readers will find themselves absorbed in wandering the Great Plains and meting out justice with Virgil.