When wildlife biologist Natalie Hughes finds her friend and mentor murdered in a bed and breakfast owned by the older woman, the search for the killer draws Natalie into a struggle over land rights that will shape the fate of a wildlife sanctuary and the future of the local Native American tribe. In the process of uncovering the murderer, Natalie overcomes her own struggle with depression and restores her sense of personal worth.
Set in a thinly fictionalized Northern California, with locations and events based on the environmental movement of the 1990s, Medicine Bird is an evocative and accurate portrayal of the individual and cultural struggles of the region's recent past.