After two
decades protecting innocent victims on the run, and a year after getting
shot on a job that took a dangerous turn for the worse, Jane McKinnon,
née Whitefield, has settled into the quiet life of a suburban housewife
in Amherst, New York—or so she thinks.
One morning as she comes back
from a long run, Jane is met by an unusual sight: all eight clan
mothers, the female leaders of the Seneca clans, parked in her driveway
in two black cars. A childhood friend of Jane’s from the reservation,
Jimmy, is wanted by the police for the murder of a local white man. But
instead of turning himself in, he's fled, and no one knows where he is
hiding out. At the clan mothers’ request, Jane retraces a walking trip
she and Jimmy took together when they were fourteen in hopes that he has
gone the same way again. But it soon becomes clear that the police
aren’t the only ones after him.
As the chase intensifies, the number of
people caught up in this twisted plot multiplies, and Jane is the only
one who can protect those endangered by it. A String of Beads is
an addictive, fast-paced thriller about how abandoning the past can
sometimes be the hardest thing to do, even when your life—and the life
of those you love—depends on it.