Broken Fields

Cash Blackbear Mystery, Book 4

By: Marcie R. Rendon

Narrated by: Isabella Star LeBlanc

Cash Blackbear, a young Ojibwe woman and occasional sleuth, is back on the case after a man is found dead on a rural Minnesota farm in the next installment of the acclaimed Native crime series.

Minnesota, 1970s: It’s spring in the Red River Valley and Cash Blackbear is doing fieldwork for a local farmer—until she finds him dead on the kitchen floor of the property’s rented farmhouse. The tenant, a Native field laborer, and his wife are nowhere to be found, but Cash discovers their young daughter, Shawnee, cowering under a bed. The girl, a possible witness to the killing, is too terrified to speak.

In the wake of the murder, Cash can’t deny her intuitive abilities: she is suspicious of the farmer’s grieving widow, who offers to take in Shawnee temporarily. While Cash is scouring White Earth Reservation for Shawnee’s missing mother—whom Cash wants to find before the girl is put in the foster system—another body turns up. Concerned by the escalating threat, Cash races against the clock to figure out the truth of what happened in the farmhouse.

Broken Fields is a compelling, atmospheric listen woven with details of American Indian life in northern Minnesota, abusive farm labor practices and women’s liberation.

©2025 Marcie R. Rendon (P)2025 Recorded Books

Great Story

Masterful creation of the mood of the times. Excellent Psychological insights about foster care and the abuse hiding under small town farm life.

Cash Blackbear is a character to root for

I listened to this fourth book in Marcie Rendon’s Cash Blackbear series in just a few days. Cash is working a field in the Red River Valley when she notices something happening in the farmyard nearby. She goes to check things out and finds the farmer who hired her dead in the kitchen and a little girl hiding under a bed upstairs, her parents nowhere in sight. Cash calls in Sheriff Wheaton and assists him in finding the little girl’s parents and solving the murder. Cash has an added motivation for helping the girl and trying to keep her out of the foster care system. Cash has flashbacks to her own terrible experiences in the system as a child. I grew up in the Red River Valley of the North in MN, and I can picture all the places that Rendon describes. I enjoy reading about my home area from another perspective, and Rendon creates compelling stories with well drawn characters. Isabella Star LaBlanc is the perfect choice as narrator for these stories.

The story.all of if

I enjoy the story of Midwestern native people especially the Dakota and Mn populations that. They were . Part of history

Honor

Cash saving the little girl. having the gut feeling there is more to the story. definitely surprised Jean cheated on her husband

I love that this takes place in the sixties

I love the book and how it explains how horrific the indigenous foster care system can be but I love how cash is a self-possessed woman and is coming to terms with her upbringing. I love that this plate takes place in the 60s where there are no cell phones and computers so it's fun to think gee why don't they just call for help when it's a little bit harder