Books in brief

A police procedural with a supernatural twist, The Hatak Witches follows Detective Monique Blue Hawk as she and her partner investigate the mysterious theft of human remains and the murder of a security guard at an Oklahoma children’s museum that holds a large collection of Native artifacts. Devon Mihesuah, Cora Lee Beers Price Teaching Professor in International Cultural Understanding at KU, whose research focuses on the empowerment and well-being of Indigenous peoples, deftly blends tribal beliefs and myths of her Choctaw Nation with life in present day Oklahoma. Her vividly detailed descriptions bring the state’s natural charms to life. Shapeshifters, Old Ones, and the titular witch are all part of a dark, powerful mystery that Blue Hawk, a recurring character in Mihesuah’s fiction, struggles to unwind as she advances understanding (her own and the reader’s) about the cosmology and cultural survival of the Choctaw Nation.