He has stolen the truck to help Grey Ginther steal National Park bison in her scheme to establish a herd of bison in Edmonton. They release them in Dawson Park along the (North) Saskatchewan River Valley.
He grew up in foster care and in group homes. Grey grew up on a small ranch.
He idly wonders about Jeff Bezos buying Saskatchewan and a million bison roaming the land.
They share a shabby mouldy trailer on an acreage owned by Grey’s uncle.
Grey has a degree in Native Studies. Ezzy never reached high school.
She is passionate about indigenous history, the colonization of the West and climate change. Ezzy is just trying to get by. He is entranced by her knowledge and commitment to causes.
He finds he likes being a bison cowboy.
They are distant cousins through a shared great-grandmother.
Ezzy has spent his life surviving. His latest survival was jail. He sees no future ahead of him but surviving.
Everything goes bad when they decide to steal another load of bison and take them to a different park.
Grey feels a mystical connection to bison for they sustained her Métis ancestors for generations. When one of the bison dies she feels guilty as the bison died “because of selfishness”. She honours the dead bison:
The animal had left a red blood smear on the land. I reached down and touched the blood with my fingertips, then put them in my mouth to lick it off. It tasted of earth and iron and soil and dirt and bone and steel and gunpowder and memory.
Ezzy has not found the way out of just surviving. His Auntie May found the way and became a social worker. Grey has never been in a surviving lifestyle. She is a well educated activist with good parents.
Kerr’s depiction of the indigenous activist business is biting. Fame and a comfortable living for full time activism is alluring. While Grey is a dedicated activist she is reflecting on the nature of professional activism.
Grey is a thoughtful person interested in big causes, some international, others Canadian indigenous. She finds herself forced by circumstance to concentrate on individual problems, her own and Ezzy’s. They are no easier to solve than big issues.
Ezzy goes into rehab. He tries to establish a routine. He is also a thoughtful person. Big issues do not occupy him. He thinks about:
We all just wanted to survive. Us and the bison.
Baloney sandwiches are indigenous comfort food. Sharon and I helped make dozens of them for the mourners at a funeral for two of the victims at the James Smith Reserve who were among the 11 killed by a band member three years ago this month. Grey’s mother makes Grey two baloney sandwiches for Grey to have on the road as she goes to visit Ezzy in rehab.
Their meeting is moving.
Prairie Edge is an unusual mystery. There is a death but it is not the focus of the book. There is neither sleuth nor police investigating the death until the RCMP get involved late in the book. They are minor characters. I will let readers decide if the death was murder.
The ending is powerful and unexpected. Prairie Edge is a wonderful book and the winner of the 2025 Crime Writers of Canada Award of Excellence for Best Novel.
Only a few bison survived the coming of the settlers. There are now thousands in Western Canada. Few live a traditional lifestyle.
This does sound like a powerful look at Indigenous experience, Bill, as well as a look at the bison and what bison have meant. It seems to me like a fine example of the sort of book that blends literary elements with a bit of crime fiction (rather than, say, a real focus on one or the other). I can see how you were drawn in.
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