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Red River Girl
- The Life and Death of Tina Fontaine
- Narrated by: Penelope Rawlins
- Length: 9 hrs and 2 mins
- Categories: Politics & Social Sciences, Social Sciences
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Publisher's Summary
National best seller
A gripping account of the unsolved death of an Indigenous teenager, and the detective determined to find her killer, set against the backdrop of a troubled city.
On August 17, 2014, the body of 15-year old runaway Tina Fontaine was found in Winnipeg's Red River. It was wrapped in material and weighted down with rocks. Red River Girl is a gripping account of that murder investigation and the unusual police detective who pursued the killer with every legal means at his disposal. The audiobook, like the movie Spotlight, chronicles the behind-the-scenes stages of a lengthy and meticulously planned investigation. It reveals characters and social tensions that bring vivid life to a story that made national headlines.
Award-winning BBC reporter and documentary maker Joanna Jolly delves into the troubled life of Tina Fontaine, the half-Ojibway, half-Cree murder victim, starting with her childhood on the Sagkeeng First Nation Reserve. Tina's journey to the capital city is a harrowing one, culminating in drug abuse, sexual exploitation, and death.
Aware of the reality of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, Jolly has chronicled Tina Fontaine's life as a reminder that she was more than a statistic. Raised by her father, and then by her great-aunt, Tina was a good student. But the violent death of her father hit Tina hard. She ran away, was found and put into the care of Child and Family Services, which she also sought to escape from. That choice left her in danger.
Red River Girl focuses not on the grisly event itself, but on the efforts to seek justice. In December 2015, the police charged Raymond Cormier, a drifter, with second-degree murder. Jolly's audiobook will cover the trial, which resulted in an acquittal. The verdict caused dismay across the country.
The audiobook is not only a true crime story, but a portrait of a community where Indigenous women are disproportionately more likely to be hurt or killed. Jolly asks questions about how Indigenous women, sex workers, community leaders, and activists are fighting back to protect themselves and change perceptions. Most importantly, the audiobook will chronicle whether Tina's family will find justice.
What the critics say
"Tina Fontaine brought international attention to the tragedy of missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, and two-spirit folks. This retelling of her life and the investigation into her death is a breathtaking account of the fight to find justice for Tina." (Wab Kinew, leader of the Manitoba NDP and author of The Reason You Walk)
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What listeners say about Red River Girl
Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Trillium25
- 2020-07-14
Hard to Hear but Important
This was a really emotional read. I remember hearing Tina's name in the news, but I never really followed the story at the time.
It's heartbreaking to not know 100% what Tina's true story was, but whether or not the Winnipeg Police got the right guy or not, they got a truly bad man, and it was incredible to read about the effort that they went into this investigation.
This book centered mainly on the investigation and not so much on the other aspect of this case which was the systemic racism of Indigenous People, particularly woman and the broken relationship they have with police officers. I am slowly starting to grasp a more accurate picture of this myself and reading between the lines you can see that outlined here, but it was only a few paragraphs, a few side notes to the main narrative which was clearly trying to make this more of a true crime novel, maybe because that's what's more popular right now.
All in all, I highly recommend this as essential reading for any Canadian, especially to those who look down at our southern neighbors and think we are so much better up here. We too still have a lot of work to do.
2 people found this helpful
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- Anonymous User
- 2020-08-01
Well told story of an innocent young girl
This book tugged at every single one of my heart strings. Everyone should listen/read it and then we all need to do something to stop the killing of young indigenous people.
1 person found this helpful
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- Carolyn Botelho
- 2021-01-02
Factual engagement with disappointment
This is an engaging story of the life and death of Tina Fountain; yet after the build up it ended in disappointment with the verdict and the investigation team's resignation.
There was positivity in how the family and community responded with continuing her legacy.This and the education on the Indigenous realities in the prairies of Canada gave it a 4.
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- Paige Riviere
- 2020-08-13
One Day Listen
This story was so gripping and so well written that I listened to the whole thing in under 24 hours. I started it while driving home one evening and ended up staying awake until 2am because I just HAD to know what happened and whether or not Tina got the justice she deserved. Not only is this a captivating story of Tina's life, but the replaying of the many ways systems failed to protect her emphasizes the difficulties and injustices the indigenous communities of Canada face every day. I hope this book helps to bring attention to these issues that are so easily ignored.
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- Buretto
- 2019-11-04
Sadly, fails to deliver on promises
My expectations for this audiobook were very high. I thought this would be intriguing as both a true crime story and a search for social justice , but was disappointed on both counts. It nevertheless touches on very important subjects and should be a catalyst for learning and doing more to fight the reprehensible treatment of Indigenous people, young girls in particular.
First of all, as a true crime story, it's thin. A parade of potential suspects is perfunctory at best, as it quickly becomes apparent who is in the crosshairs of the police. But, still, fair enough, we don't need to manufacture a mystery... the dogged tracking of a killer could be interesting. But it's not. What we are given are accounts of incompetent, and later grossly unethical, police work. All this while the author is firmly supportive of the police. A more critical look at the police, their skills, and motivation to solve the crime, may have made the story more engrossing.
And secondly (and in my opinion FAR more importantly), as an effort for social justice, I expected a much more comprehensive look into the atrocity of the treatment of native peoples, particularly the exploitation and murder of young Indigenous women. Outside of a few points of quoted statistics, the briefest of colonial histories and a procession of governmental promises, including ones by a then-incoming Justin Trudeau-led government (good luck with that), there is very little in the way of urgency for seeking justice. (The author found considerable time to spend on the significance of a duvet cover, however, in the true crime part of the story.) It just feels that Tina Fontaine was not well served by a book written ostensibly to speak for her.
Finally, I'm rarely critical of narrators, as it is a difficult job, and frankly it's not that hard for the listener to get past minor annoyances. However, when quoted speech is necessary, it would be best if the narrator could either... a) read in their own voice and allow that the writing is precise enough that the listener can understand who is speaking, or... b) adequately speak in voices, particularly across gender, which are not cartoonish, e.g. the Python-esque crone of men speaking women's words or the "dumb guy" voice of female readers doing men's (usually criminals) voices. A British voice narrating a book by a British author is all well and good, but perhaps a Canadian, or even more exactly a First Nations, narrator may have more convincingly conveyed the idea that the book was about the subject, Tina Fontaine and her murder, rather than the author herself.
3 people found this helpful