DreadfulWater Shows Up by Hartley Goodweather (thoughts)

This is the first, and so far only, mystery novel of Thomas King, one of my favourite novelists. It’s written under quite a fun pseudonym, Hartley Goodweather, and features Cherokee Thump DreadfulWater, a former cop now turned photographer a small town on the west side of the Rockies. The small town, Chinook, is full of fun characters, both Native American and white, and King plays off of stereotypes and cliches in a delicious way (eta: in case I wasn’t clear, King himself is Native American, so the stereotype stuff is tongue-in-cheek and done for deliberate effect). The fun part is that he’s playing with both the genre tropes and the racial ones, with some gender stuff as the cherry on top! The whole plot has a tongue-in-cheek feel to it (particularly the ending), as Thump gets dragged in to investigating against his will thanks to Claire Merchant, a strong woman with whom he enjoys a kind of relationship. At the same time that King is playing with all of this gentle irony, he brings in what I’ve adored about his other two novels: a delicate and spot-on description of human relationships. Even while Thump and the rest of Chinook’s citizens have playful characteristics, the way that they all interact is pitch perfect. I think that element of realism is what balances the whole novel; King is a masterful writer and a masterful storyteller, and DreadfulWater Shows Up shows that to the fullest. I just hope he plans to continue Thump’s adventures into a series!

Suggested Companion Reads (linked to my thoughts)

• Green Grass, Running Water by Thomas King (Another one of King’s books in which he plays with genre, in this case magical realism.)
• Indian Killer by Sherman Alexie (Another offering in Native American suspense fiction, this is a masterfully written thriller.)
• Witch of the Palo Duro by Mardi Oakley Medawar (Part of a historical mystery series by a Cherokee author; Medawar isn’t as good a writer as King, but her sleuth/narrator is as loveable as Thump.)
• Wife of the Gods by Kwei Quartery (This is another ‘traditional’ (aka not hard-boiled) mystery with unusual locale, in this case Ghana; it’s not at the same literary level.)
• Talking About Detective Fiction by P.D. James (A marvelous, slim nonfiction look at the mystery genre; also a great resource if you’re looking for new-to-you mystery authors to try.)
• Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro (More genre playing by an accomplished author, in this case sci-fi instead of mystery.)
• Orlando by Virginia Woolf (Another playful narrative that challenges conventions, albeit in a much less straight-forward manner than all the other books I’m talking about.)
• The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield (Setterfield does a kind of homage to the gothic style here; her awareness of its tropes and the way she plays off that reminds me of King’s approach to mysteries.)