Matter of Malice: A DreadfulWater Mystery

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HarperCollins, Jan 29, 2019 - Fiction - 400 pages

When a TV producer asks Thumps to assist with an episode about a local woman from a wealthy family whose death was ruled “misadventure,” he is reluctant to get involved. Then the producer dies in the exact same manner, and Thumps finds himself solving two cases.

Can a reality TV show solve a cold case?

The crew of a true-crime reality TV show, Malice Aforethought, shows up in Chinook to do an episode about the death of Trudy Samuels. Trudy’s death had originally been ruled accidental, but with ratings in mind, one of the producers, Nina Maslow, wants to prove it was murder. And she wants Thumps to help. Thumps is reluctant to get involved until Nina dies in the exact same place and in the exact same way as Trudy. Are the two deaths related? Or are there two murderers on the loose in Chinook? Thumps uses Nina’s Malice Aforethought files to try to fit the pieces of the puzzle together, and in the process discovers that she had already started work on another case close to Thumps' heart: the Obsidian murders.

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About the author (2019)

THOMAS KING is an award-winning novelist, short story writer, scriptwriter and photographer of Cherokee and Greek descent. His critically acclaimed, bestselling fiction includes Medicine River, Green Grass, Running Water, Truth and Bright Water, A Short History of Indians in Canada, and most recently The Back of the Turtle, which won the 2014 Governor General’s Award. The Inconvenient Indian, a work of non-fiction, won several national prizes and was described by Joseph Boyden as “destined to become a classic of historical narrative.” A member of the Order of Canada and the recipient of an award from the National Aboriginal Foundation, Thomas King has taught at the University of Lethbridge and was Chair of American Indian Studies at the University of Minnesota before moving to the University of Guelph where he taught Indigenous Literature and Creative Writing. A Matter of Malice is the fourth novel in Thomas King’s DreadfulWater series.

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