The title The Sentence takes on several meanings throughout the book, from a prison sentence to an actual sentence that our indigenous protagonist, Tookie, thinks can kill people. Louise Erdrich's characters are living through early COVID times in Minneapolis, trying to figure out what was happening at the time of George Floyd's murder. If you like books and bookstores, you will enjoy reading about the survival of a small independent bookstore based on the real Birchbark Books. Oh, by the way, the main theme is solving the mystery of a haunting at this fictional bookstore.Publisher's description:
A small independent bookstore in Minneapolis is haunted from November 2019 to November 2020 by the store's most annoying customer. Flora dies on All Souls' Day, but she simply won't leave the store. Tookie, who has landed a job selling books after years of incarceration that she survived by reading with murderous attention, must solve the mystery of this haunting while at the same time trying to understand all that occurs in Minneapolis during a year of grief, astonishment, isolation, and furious reckoning.