How do you know if a suicide was really a murder? The Cage by Bonnie Kistler is part murder mystery, part legal thriller, and part human rights drama. Shay Lambert has worked hard to go to college and law school. She’s smart, married, career-oriented, and overall a perfectly flawed woman. She works long hours wading through boxes of documents to produce in a shareholder lawsuit against the iconic fashion mogul she works for named CDMI. Their corporate symbol is the dove complete with caged live doves in the corporate headquarters. When leaving work late one Sunday, the corporate HR person, Lucy, gets on the elevator with her. The lights go out and Lucy gets shot in the head. Shay says it was suicide. Detective Riley starts getting fed red herrings by corporate counsel Barrett to think it was actually murder. The trap works and Shay is in jail charged with murder and unable to make bail. The characters she meets in jail are also perfectly flawed. I fell in love with Jingjing, a sex trafficking victim. (When this book gets made into a movie Awkwafina needs to be cast as Jingjing.) Shay is determined to prove her innocence. An unlikely ally comes along, opposing counsel, Mark, from the case Shay was working on. Barrett is still determined to silence Shay so the dirty secret of child labor utilized in their clothing manufacturing and so much more won’t fly out of her mouth. He's assigned security man, Lester, to follow her as well as others. Shay is now an expert in corporate law, class action litigation, criminal law, family law, and international human rights as well as revenge. The twists start coming every which way and from every character including her elusive husband David. The ending was perfect- wrapping together the theme of cages destroying freedom, doves meaning freedom, as well as patriarchal corporate America continuing wealth accumulation at the detriment of those doing the work. The ending wasn’t just perfection, it perfectly poised a few characters to continue their fight in subsequent books. Hopefully, a sequel will be flying our way.
If you are looking for an indigenous author to support in November, then This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger has a great historical fiction read for you. Krueger is a member of the Anishinaabe ( Ojibwe ) tribe. This dialogue between a bit so likable character Jack and the teen narrator Odie will give you a good idea of the story. “Ask me, God’s right here. In the dirt, the rain, the sky, the trees, the apples, the stars in the cottonwoods. In you and me, too. It’s all connected and it’s all God. Sure this is hard work, but it’s good work because it’s a part of what connects us to this land, Buck. This beautiful, tender land.” Jack in Chapter 20. Odie then replies with his theory about how “God is a tornado.” which refers back to when a tornado killed a loving teacher, Mrs. Frost. The book was originally published in 2019 and is great as an audiobook coming in at 14 hours and 19 minutes on regular speed versus 464 pages of hard copy. ...
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