Photo: #Jim Proebstle's first novel "In the Absence of Honor," is set on an Indian reservation in northern Minnesota. The story involves tribal casino corruption, conspiracy and murder.
Photo: #Jim Proebstle's new novel is set on a Minnesota Indian reservation. The author has family ties to the region that go back to the 1920s and he's spent summers in northern Minnesota since he was a boy.

New novel set on northern Minnesota Indian reservation

by Tom Robertson, Minnesota Public Radio
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A summer resident of Minnesota has set his first novel on a fictional Ojibwe reservation.

Bemidji, Minn. — There's a new novel in bookstores that's set on a northern Minnesota Indian reservation. The book is called "In the Absence of Honor."

First-time novelist Jim Proebstle is a summer resident of the Leech Lake area. His family ties to the region go back to the 1920s, when his grandfather was a switchman for the Great Northern Railway in Cass Lake.

Proebstle, a management consultant in Deer Park, Ill., weaves a story that includes tribal casino corruption, conspiracy and murder.

Proebstle told Minnesota Public Radio's Tom Robertson he's been fascinated by the history and culture of reservation life since he was a kid. But he said it was a challenge to write about a culture he's only seen from the outside.

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