DreadfulWater by Thomas King

DreadfulWater by Thomas King (2002) - It is not often the name of a sleuth impacts my reading but Thumps DreadfulWater is an amazing name. Author Thomas King has long been clever with names. As the writer of a Canadian radio show, The Dead Dog Cafe Comedy Hour, he created a periodic segment called the Authentic Indian Name Generator where three rotating wheels would come up with Indian Names such as Rosemarie Clever Tuna. My next post will be about King’s sense of humour.

In DreadfulWater Thumps, a former California homicide detective, is now a fine-art photographer in Chinook located somewhere in the northwestern United States on the intersection of the plains and the mountains. He loves working on the photos he can create in his darkroom. Thumps sometime, he is not always sure when, girlfriend is Claire Merchant, Chief of the local tribe.

Thumps is drifting along when Daniel Takashi, a computer tech, is found murdered at the Buffalo Mountain Resort. The resort will feature a casino with an adjacent condo development. The Resort is about to open and no one is happy that a dead Takashi is sitting in a condo suite (one narrow room with a combined view of majestic Western landscape and parking lot).

Swiftly arriving are executives and a computer tech from Genesis Data Systems, the employer of Takashi. They are seeking to determine if a virus or worm has been placed in the resort computer system.

Claire asks Thumps to look into what happened. She is rightly concerned her son Stanley, known as Stick, is a prime suspect. He has opposed the development as a member of the Red Hawks and has computer skills.

Sheriff Duke Hockney sees no need for assistance from the former California detective.

At the same times residents of the reservation are more likely to be open with Thumps than Duke.

While Stick had some motive Thumps does not see anyone else around who had a reason to kill Takashi. It would be convenient if Stick were the guilty party.

Events get more complicated when there is another murder involving a witness who may have been holding back evidence. And it is not the last murder.

The story hit a lull in the mid-portion of the book but was always easy reading.

I was struggling to see how King would wrap up the multiple murders but he had a convincing and clever solution.

Thumps is a great character. I wonder how much of Thumps is autobiographical. Author and Thumps both have Cherokee heritage and California beginnings.

There is a sadness about Thumps. He cannot forget a series of unsolved murders in California that became intensely personal.

I had known of the series for some time and thought about trying it out. In Calgary for Easter I dropped in at a new bookstore, The Next page, in the Inglewood neighbourhood where my sons and spouses and granddaughter reside and saw DreadfulWater for sale. What is unusual about the book is that it was first published as DreadfulWater Shows Up under the pseudonym of Hartley GoodWeather.

I intend to read the next in the series.