Perry Firekeeper-Birch has her summer mapped out: she’s going to spend her days outside, fishing and enjoying the company of her dog, Junior. But when she wrecks the Jeep her Auntie Daunis bought (not even her fault, she was barely speeding, and no one was hurt!) she’s forced to join her high-achieving twin working at the Kinomaage Summer Internship Program. Worse still, her supervisor is Cooper Turtle, the ‘kooky’ curator of the tribal museum at the Sugar Island Cultural Learning Centre.

Cooper gives Perry an assignmentlearn about NAGPRA (the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act), to find out why these laws are so important, and learn the myriad ways universities and private collectors try to avoid giving back all their stolen artefacts. Perry’s original plans disappear the moment she meets Warrior Girl – a Native American ancestor whose remains are locked in a drawer in the university archives.

Set in the same world as her first book, Firekeeper’s Daughter, Angeline Boulley’s sophomore novel is just as gripping as her debut. If anything, it’s more intense; the book is interspersed with quotes from books about NAGPRA and Native American history, which drive home the horror of this reality. Of course the story is fictional, but the parts that are truly terrifying – the casual pillaging of Native American graves, the selling of ‘artefacts’ on the internet, the deeply ingrained racism in the university system – are all very real.

It’s easy to look at Perry and criticise her impatience and desperation to act. Usually, it’s better to go about things through legal channels and do everything by the book. But Perry has seen the legal system fail again and again, and she is desperate to do something – and that is just as understandable. I love Perry’s fire and drive, her passion and empathy. I cannot recommend this book highly enough! For readers 16+