Set against the backdrop of the North American Indian Days—an annual celebration in Browning, Montana on the Blackfeet Nation—a group of four teenagers find themselves in the middle of a murder investigation after a classmate is found dead.

LOOKING FOR SMOKE
by K.A. Cobell
Heartdrum/ HarperCollins, June 2024
(via Park & Fine Literary and Media)

Since moving to the Blackfeet Reservation with her parents, Mara Racette has felt like an outsider, taunted by her tight-knit classmates for growing up far away. So, when a local girl includes Mara in a traditional Blackfeet Giveaway to honor her missing sister, Mara thinks she’ll finally make some friends.

Instead, a girl from the Giveaway, Samantha White Tail, is found murdered.

Because the members of the Giveaway group were the last to see Samantha alive, each becomes a person of interest in the investigation: New-girl Mara, who hated Samantha for being particularly cruel; grief-stricken Loren Arnoux, who was Samantha’s best friend until her sister’s disappearance drove a wedge between them; class-clown Brody Clark, whose unreciprocated crush on Samantha is an open secret; and tough-guy Eli First Kill, who has his own complicated history with Samantha.

Despite deep mistrust, the four must now take matters into their own hands and clear their names. Even though one of them may be the murderer.

« A stunning debut, as beautiful as it is bold. Cobell has woven an aching examination of grief in an Indigenous community with a thriller brimming with so many secrets and twists, it’ll leave you breathless. » —Diana Urban, award-winning author of All Your Twisted Secrets

« A gripping debut thriller with dynamic characters who leap off the page and demand to be heard. » — Jessica Goodman, NYT bestselling author of The Counselors and the Legacies

K.A. Cobell, Staa’tssipisstaakii, is an enrolled member of the Blackfeet Nation. She currently lives in the Pacific Northwest, where she spends her time writing books, chasing her kids through the never-ending rain, and scouring the inlet beaches for sand dollars and hermit crabs. LOOKING FOR SMOKE is her debut novel.