Dreadful Water Shows Up

Michael Nolan is a professor of English at the Memorial University of
Newfoundland.

A body is discovered in a condo of an about-to-be-opened resort and
casino on a reserve in the U.S. northeast. Thumps DreadfulWater, a
Cherokee ex-police officer and photographer, is asked by his lover, the
head of the tribal council, to investigate. Her son, Stick Merchant, a
young activist, is the prime suspect, but Thumps is sure he is innocent.
Shootouts, corpses, and golf games ensue.

This mystery novel by Hartley GoodWeather (pseudonym of Thomas King) is
stronger than its limp title. The writing is consistently competent and
occasionally better, despite an overuse of sentence fragments. If
stereotypes (both racial and genre-related) are used, they are used
knowingly, played for humour and perhaps even mild satire. There is a
mystic elder who “talks to” computers, and the tough-stomached
coroner is a lesbian. Thumps himself, with his love of cats and golf,
counters views of both cop and Cherokee.

The disadvantage of this approach is that it negates attempts to
humanize the characters. Thumps’s “tragic past” is mere plot
device, and the examples of racial injustice are perfunctory and
unaffecting. The politically correct slant of the novel also limits its
impact as a mystery. The reader understands who the killer cannot be,
and who it likely is.

References to movies and TV are frequent and the novel feels like a
good pilot episode of an ethnic Rockford Files. In particular, the
confrontation of hero and killer, with the distant whirr of police
sirens, is screen action. In hopes of a franchise, the conclusion
intimates a sequel. It wouldn’t be undeserving of one.