Blood Relay, Devon Mihesuah
Blood Relay, Devon Mihesuah
List: $22.00 | Sale: $15.40
Club: $11.00

Blood Relay

Author: Devon Mihesuah

Narrator: Bailey Frankenberg

Unabridged: 8 hr 59 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 02/24/2026


Synopsis

In this richly layered debut thriller reminiscent of the real issue of missing and murdered Indigenous people, a badass Choctaw detective discovers an insidious plot against her reservation while investigating the disappearance of a beloved champion athlete.

Choctaw Detective Perry Antelope has been with her partner, Sophia Burns, for only six months. Perry is a seasoned investigator while the ex-Olympian shot putter Sophia is a former street-smart police officer. Together, they are an intrepid pair with an established record of success. But when Perry and Sophia are called to investigate the disappearance of Dels Billy, a beloved women’s Indian Horse Relay rider, they quickly realize that it’s not as cut-and-dry as anything they’ve faced before.

Piece by piece, they uncover unsettling connections between Dels’s disappearance and a series of unsolved abductions of women from Oklahoma reservations. But the perpetrator always seems to be one step ahead, and Perry soon finds herself—and her family—in the crosshairs of a ruthless killer. Despite her husband’s pleas for her to drop the case, Perry is determined to prevent Dels from becoming another statistic.

As the investigation deepens, Perry and Sophia follow a tangled web of clues that point to a close-to-home plot more chilling than they could have imagined. Torn between her family’s safety and her duty to her community, Perry must race against the clock, and across tribal Nations, to find Dels before her murderous abductor can carry out their sinister plan.

About The Author

Devon Mihesuah is an enrolled citizen of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma and the Cora Lee Beers Price Professor in the Hall Center for the Humanities at the University of Kansas. A historian by training, she is a former editor of the American Indian Quarterly and the author of numerous award-winning nonfiction and fiction works about Native history and culture.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Mary on October 12, 2025

There's not much better than a novel whose main characters are intelligent, kick-ass women. This book has a great story line, excellent characters and for this Northeaster, I learned about a type of horse racing done in the west called Indian Relay Racing - an intense sport requiring great athletici......more

Goodreads review by Brenda Marie on January 17, 2026

wow. this book had me hooked! touched on so many real issues- most importantly disappearing native people, whether police brutality, stolen land but most importantly human trafficking. Perry and Dels had me sweating the last few chapters desperate to know how it ends.......more

Goodreads review by Bbecca_marie on February 26, 2026

Book Review 🩸 thank you so much partner @bantambooks @randomhouse @storygramtours for the gifted copy! Blood Relay by Devon A. Mihesuah out now! In this richly layered debut thriller inspired by the real crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous people, a Choctaw detective uncovers an insidious plot agai......more

Goodreads review by Shannon on February 24, 2026

A fantastic debut thriller that features a really badass Choctaw detective and her ex-shotput Olympian partner who take on a missing Indian horse relay rider's disappearance only to stumble upon a much bigger MMIWG case. Suspenseful, compelling and utterly relevant. This story will keep you on the e......more

Goodreads review by Courtney on November 30, 2025

As fast paced as any good mystery novel should be, but with more depth and heart than most any I’ve read before. Dels Billy, a fierce female horse relay competitor, is taken from a rest stop on the team’s drive home following a competition win. The horse trailer and the youngest member of the team,......more


Quotes

“In Blood Relay, Choctaw detective Perry Antelope investigates a carefully engineered crime that quickly ripples far beyond a single disappearance. With prose that’s both precise and unflinching, Devon Mihesuah delivers a harrowing and deeply necessary crime novel.”—Cynthia Pelayo, Bram Stoker Award–winning author of Children of Chicago

“Indian Relay Races might be the most exciting thing happening in NDN country. Add in a case of #mmiw, and the reader is taken on a wild ride as Detective Perry Antelope partners with Sophia Burns to find Dels, a female Indian horse relay rider who has disappeared. Blood Relay is an action-packed novel for contemporary times featuring thrilling heroines.”—Marcie Rendon, author of Where They Last Saw Her

“[Devon Mihesuah’s] depiction of Native life is full of distinctive personalities who will hold readers’ attention, and her visceral fight scenes have a grittier, more lived-in edge than those in the average cop novel. . . . A satisfying, deeply felt, and uncomfortably relevant crime story.”Publishers Weekly