A single cry for help can change the person who listens forever.
Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Kelly Flynn is called to a crime scene where a foot in a running shoe has washed up along the Pacific shoreline. While there, she meets Therese, the mother of a missing Native woman, Diyanni. The young woman has been missing for almost a month, but the local police and the Bureau of Indian Affairs have shown little interest.
Kelly resists Therese’s plea for help as she feels overwhelmed with other commitments and the needs of her troubled teenaged daughter. But when Therese tells her about the dismissive attitude of the city police, Kelly decides to help Therese work through the jurisdictional maze of law enforcement agencies.
Kelly finds herself in an eye-opening tangle of disinterest, negligence, lack of resources, and no easy answers for cases involving missing Indigenous people. As she begins to learn more, she works to hold on to her idealism and help find justice for Diyanni.
Flotsam is an awakening to the tragedy of treating people like discarded debris, wrapped up in a page-turning mystery set in the misty Pacific Northwest.
"An emotive and disturbing tale of a missing native American woman, her distraught mother and a dedicated attorney fighting for the truth." — Jennifer Hill, Reedsy.com
"With compassion and urgency, Patricia Boomsma’s Flotsam depicts the deep and raw grief of a community damaged by the disappearance of some of its most vulnerable members. Told through a variety of perspectives and with a solid foundation of understanding and knowledge, this novel does not shy away from scathing commentary on losses dangerously ignored. At its heart, though, Flotsam is a story of mothers and daughters and the yearning toward a better system of care and concern for those most in need." — Patricia Ann McNair, Responsible Adults
Bink Books
174 pp. ● 6x9
$17.95 (pb) ● $9.99 (eb)
ISBN 978-1-960373-12-0 (pb)
FICTION / Mystery & Detective / Police Procedural
FICTION / Indigenous
FICTION / Thrillers / Crime
Publication date: September 26, 2023
"Flotsam is a wake-up call to the tragedy of discarding people as worthless. I was intrigued from the start and was kept guessing until the end. Patricia Boomsma took me on a roller coaster ride and I could not turn the pages fast enough. There was always a surprise waiting around the corner, and the suspense kept me on the edge of my seat." — Alma Boucher for Readers' Favorite
"A well-written, cleverly plotted mystery focusing on Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Kelly Flynn and her attempts to find missing women. But Flotsam is not just another mystery, it's also a commentary on how missing women can be treated by law enforcement, particularly if they happen to be native to the country. I liked the hero so much, I'm hoping to see her in many more books in the future." — The Wishing Shelf
"Flotsam is an eye-opening story that seeks to educate as well as entertain. Author Patricia Boomsma has created a real-to-life narrative that appears to play itself out frequently both in Canada and America, where women disappear regularly and there is not the same emphasis placed on finding them or whether foul play was involved in their disappearance. This was an excellent read that I finished in one satisfying session. I can highly recommend this book." — Grant Leishman for Readers' Favorite
Patricia Boomsma is a retired Arizona lawyer now writing full time. She earned a master’s degree in English from Purdue University, a law degree from Indiana University in Indianapolis, and an MFA in Creative Writing from Queens University in Charlotte. Her publications include short stories in Scarlet Leaf Review, Persimmon Tree, and Vignette Review. Indolent Press published her poem “Arc of the Apocalypse” both online and in the anthology “Poems From the Aftermath.” Her first novel, The Way of Glory (Edeleboom Books 2018), won the Bill Fisher Award for Best First Book-Fiction from the Independent Book Publishers Association and a First Place/Best in Category Chaucer Award from Chanticleer Book Reviews. Her second novel, Lost, is scheduled for publication by Bedazzled Ink in 2024.