“Remarkable . . . [The book’s] strength derives not from vast panoramas but from an intimate gaze. By looking at Clarke’s murder through Yellow Bird’s eyes, we get to see the forces that shape and ultimately unite their lives. I’ve long felt that Native communities are perceived (by Native and non-Native people alike) as places in America but not of America. Murdoch troubles this false separation and helps us understand Yellow Bird and Clarke, and by extension Native and non-Native lives, as deeply intertwined. We also see the nervous mixture of hope and desperation, of compassion and cruelty, of money and its lack, of the desperate grasp of wealth and the human cost it exacts. Yellow Bird’s fanatical but dignified search brought closure to Clarke’s family and change to Fort Berthold. In her telling of the story, Murdoch brings the same fanaticism and dignity to the search for and meaning of modern Native America.”

“[A] great true-crime story…Lissa Yellow Bird is one of the most fascinating characters I’ve ever read about—and she’s a real person…It’s Yellow Bird’s incremental fight that makes the book addictive, full of twists and turns and surprising choices…Murdoch reports the hell out of it, digging up text messages and conversations and business dealings and shifts in tribal power. She also gets deep into personal relationships and reveals their richness from all sides. It’s a remarkable accomplishment.”

“This book will tear your heart out. I don’t know a more complicated, original protagonist in literature than Lissa Yellow Bird, or a more dogged reporter in American journalism than Sierra Crane Murdoch. At the center of this extraordinary story is a murder mystery, which unfolds within the ongoing travesty of the Bakken oil boom, which takes place within the unending dispossession of Native Americans. The Fort Berthold Indian Reservation, in North Dakota, has a stomach-turning history, and life there today as dramatized here is a haunted, unforgettable struggle, full of courage and beautifully drawn characters.”

“Sierra Crane Murdoch has written a deft, compelling account of an oil field murder and the remarkable woman who made it her business to solve it. Like the best true crime books, Yellow Bird is about much more than an act of violence. Murdoch’s careful reporting delves into the long legacies of greed and exploitation on the reservation and the oil patch, and also the moments of connection and transcendence that chip away at those systems of power. I can’t stop thinking and talking about this book.”

“This book is a detective story, and a good one, that tells what happens when rootless greed collides with rooted culture. But it’s also a classic slice of American history, and a tale of resilience in the face of remarkable trauma. Sierra Crane Murdoch is a patient, careful, and brilliant chronicler of this moment in time, a new voice who will add much to our literature in the years ahead.”

“In Yellow Bird, oilfield meets reservation, and readers meet a true-to-life Native sleuth unlike any in literature. Sierra Crane Murdoch takes a modest, ignored sort of American life and renders it large, with a murder mystery driving the action. It’s an empathetic, attentive account by a talented writer and listener.”

“A story that expertly blends true crime, environmental drama, and family saga. For a first nonfiction work, Murdoch has outdone herself by telling the story in a beautifully narrative way ... Her account offers no easy answers and causes readers to face the moral questions involved: resource mining on Native land, hardships caused by the signing and breaking of treaties, and the difficulties faced by everyone during an economic recession ... Required reading.”

“A powerful portrayal of an unusual sleuth whose dogged pursuit of a missing person inquiry led to justice ... Admirers of David Grann’s Killers of the Flower Moon will be drawn to this complex crime story.”

“An impressive debut that serves as an eye-opening view of both the oil economy and Native American affairs.”