Mystery / Thrillers / Horror

#1 New York Times bestselling author of Firekeeper's Daughter Angeline Boulley takes us back to Sugar Island in this high-stakes thriller about the power of discovering your stolen history.

Perry Firekeeper-Birch has always known who she is - the laidback twin, the troublemaker, the best fisher on Sugar Island. Her aspirations won't ever take her far from home, and she wouldn't have it any other way. But as the rising number of missing Indigenous women starts circling closer to home, as her family becomes embroiled in a high-profile murder investigation, and as greedy grave robbers seek to profit off of what belongs to her Anishinaabe tribe, Perry begins to question everything.

In order to reclaim this inheritance for her people, Perry has no choice but to take matters into her own hands. She can only count on her friends and allies, including her overachieving twin and a charming new boy in town with unwavering morals. Old rivalries, sister secrets, and botched heists cannot - will not - stop her from uncovering the mystery before the ancestors and missing women are lost forever.

Sometimes, the truth shouldn't stay buried.

Educator Information
Recommended for ages 14 to 18. 

Warrior Girl Unearthed is set in the same community as Firekeeper's Daughter and includes many of the same characters.

Additional Information
400 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | Hardcover 

For the first time since the pandemic, Thumps DreadfulWater has finally found some peace in small-town Chinook. Sure, his beloved cat is still missing and his relationship with Claire is more than uncertain, but at least he can relax in the comfort of his home. And now that local businesses are starting to open their doors again, everything can go back to normal.

But when Thumps unintentionally discovers a body at the bottom of a treacherous canyon, he becomes entangled once again in an inexplicable mystery. As more puzzling details come to the surface, Thumps begins to question whom he can truly trust—especially when an unexpected visitor walks back into his life.

In the follow-up to Obsidian, a Globe and Mail Favourite of 2020, Thumps DreadfulWater returns with wit and wry humour to solve a mystery that only Thomas King could create.

Series Information
This book is from the DreadfulWater Mystery series, a mystery/detective series from Thomas King.

Books in this series include:
- Dreadful Water
- The Red Power Murders
- Cold Skies
- A Matter of Malice
- The Obsidian Murders
- Deep House 
- Double Eagle
- Black Ice

Additional Information
400 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | Paperback

Marcie R. Rendon’s follow-up to Murder on the Red River finds Cash helping Sheriff Wheaton solve a murder that has likeness to the cases of missing and murdered Native women.

Cash is off to a local college with the help of Wheaton, who wants her to take hold of her life and aspire to better things. At Moorhead State she sees that people talk a lot but mostly about nothing, not like the men in the fields she’s known all her life, who hold the rich topsoil in their hands, talk fertilizer and weather and prices on the Grain Exchange.

In between classes and hauling beets, drinking beer and shooting pool, she begins to dream of the Cities and blonde Scandinavian girls calling for help.

Reviews
"Rendon is a natural storyteller and a consummate writer, and we’re indebted to Cinco Puntos Press in El Paso for bringing the unforgettable Cash Blackbear to life. There isn’t a protagonist in recent fiction with the bearing of Rendon’s creation, and we’re the better for knowing her."—Jeffrey Mannix

"I won’t recount the terror, the drama, and the bravery of what follows. You can read the book yourself. The ending, I’ll just say, is deeply satisfying. Rendon has been working for years in the prisons with women who are incarcerated for prostitution, soliciting, and other offenses. Teaching them to tell their stories and access their inner writing voice. She’s able to convey the savagery of the system, what it does to women and their families, how deeply it is connected to poverty, and how it reaches into white rural and suburban areas as well as communities of color." —Ann Markusen, Grand Rapids Herald-Review

"Darn that Marcie Rendon but she did it again. She wrote another book featuring Renee “Cash” Blackbear which invariably led to non-stop, compulsive reading and thoughts about the 19-year-old protagonist...This is a good book. If you read it, block out uninterrupted time. It’s hard to put down."—Deborah Locke,The Circle News: Native American News and Arts

"The vivid writing and keen eye keep the pages turning and readers hoping for another book in this series."—Wendy J. Fox, Buzzfeed

"Rendon's refreshing sequel to 2017's Murder on the Red River...When [Cash] hears about a missing coed, she contacts [Sheriff] Wheaton. Since they previously worked together successfully on a murder, Wheaton trusts Cash’s sharp instincts and asks for her help in solving the case...Rendon, herself a member of the White Earth Anishinabe Nation, highlights the plight of Native Americans who were forcibly adopted by whites and Cash’s discomfort in a land that is and is not hers. Readers will look forward to Cash’s next outing."—Publishers Weekly

"In her second outing, Cash Blackbear goes off to college and finds herself embroiled in the mystery of a missing classmate. 'I'm not used to folks treating me like I'm stupid,' says Cash. But Moorhead State is another world, one slow to disclose the secrets of its initiated."—Kirkus Reviews

Series Information
This is the second book in the Cash Blackbear Mystery series from author Marcie Rendon.  

Additional Information
336 pages | 5.51" x 8.26" | Paperback

1970s, Red River Valley between North Dakota and Minnesota: Renee “Cash” Blackbear is 19 years old and tough as nails. She lives in Fargo, North Dakota, where she drives truck for local farmers, drinks beer, plays pool, and helps solve criminal investigations through the power of her visions. She has one friend, Sheriff Wheaton, her guardian, who helped her out of the broken foster care system.

One Saturday morning, Sheriff Wheaton is called to investigate a pile of rags in a field and finds the body of an Indian man. When Cash dreams about the dead man’s weathered house on the Red Lake Reservation, she knows that’s the place to start looking for answers. Together, Cash and Wheaton work to solve a murder that stretches across cultures in a rural community traumatized by racism, genocide, and oppression.

Reviews
“More of a coming of age story than a mystery … the spare prose-poetry of her descriptions and dialogue is a lot more interesting than anything she has to say about crime or detection.”—Kirkus Reviews

“An appealing 19-year-old heroine, Renee 'Cash' Blackbear, lifts [Marcie] Rendon’s first mystery.”—Publishers Weekly

“[Rendon] is one heck of a mystery novelist. Rendon’s Cash Blackbear books are gripping vehicles that tell broader stories about the historical persecution of American Indians.”—Oprah Daily

Series Information
This is the first book in the Cash Blackbear Mystery series from author Marcie Rendon.

Additional Information
320 pages | 5.52" x 8.22" | Paperback

In this unusual and forceful novel, Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award–winning author Louise Erdrich creates a wickedly funny ghost story, a tale of passion, of a complex marriage, and of a woman's relentless errors.

The Sentence asks what we owe to the living, the dead, to the reader and to the book. A small independent bookstore in Minneapolis is haunted from November 2019 to November 2020 by the store's most annoying customer. Flora dies on All Soul's Day, but she simply won't leave the store. Tookie, who has landed a job selling books after years of incarceration that she survived by reading "with murderous attention," must solve the mystery of this haunting while at the same time trying to understand all that occurs in Minneapolis during a year of grief, astonishment, isolation, and furious reckoning.

The Sentence begins on All Soul’s Day 2019 and ends on All Soul’s Day 2020. Its mystery and proliferating ghost stories during this one year propel a narrative as rich, emotional, and profound as anything Louise Erdrich has written.

Additional Information
400 pages | 5.31" x 8.00" | Paperback

Celeste, a card sharp with a need for justice, takes on the role of advocatus diaboli, to defend her sister Mariel, accused of murdering a Virtue, a member of the ruling class of this mining town, in a new world of dark fantasy from the New York Times bestselling author of Black Sun, Rebecca Roanhorse.

The year is 1883 and the mining town of Goetia is booming as prospectors from near and far come to mine the powerful new element Divinity from the high mountains of Colorado with the help of the pariahs of society known as the Fallen. The Fallen are the descendants of demonkind living amongst the Virtues, the winners in an ancient war, with the descendants of both sides choosing to live alongside Abaddon’s mountain in this tale of the mythological West from the bestselling mastermind Rebecca Roanhorse.

Reviews
“Rebecca Roanhorse… [is one] of the Indigenous novelists reshaping North American science fiction, horror and fantasy — genres in which Native writers have long been overlooked.” — The New York Times

“Readers are in for intricate world-building, engrossing adventure and stunning backdrops.” — The Washington Post

"The pages turn themselves. A beautifully crafted setting with complex character dynamics and layers of political intrigue? Perfection. Mark your calendars, this is the next big thing." — Kirkus, starred review

Additional Information
208 pages | 5.00" x 7.00" | Hardcover

This book continues the charming story of Lillian and Kokomis, the award-winning book about a complex and not-always-lovable foster kid who finds a sense of peace and belonging from a surprising spirit that returns her to traditional ways, legends, and Indigenous ways of knowledge. Why Are You Still Here? uncovers the mystery of ghosts and spirits that live behind a window at the family farm.

Reviews
"This is a page-turner story with a long-awaited validation of how children have a natural spiritual intelligence. This is a gift in children that needs to be nurtured. Bravo Lillian!" — Robin Decontie MSW, CFNHM, Director, Kitigan Zibi Health and Social Services

"It was my pleasure to pre-read the latest book in the Lillian series. Lynda Partridge takes the reader from the easy chair to the farm to join Grace, Chloe, and Lillian as they work together to understand the mysterious messages coming from the old barn. Reading this story, I was captured by the blending of tradition, culture and the current day pandemic. I also appreciated the messages that Lynda weaves into her writing about appreciating the wisdom of the children as well as the elders. A very good read for all ages!…" —Leo Massi MSW, RSW, Executive Dircetor, H-N REACH

"Lynda Partridge’s latest book from the life of l is an excellent read for children and adults as well. I found myself enthralled, deeply curious about the mystery in the barn. Lynda takes you into the lives of the family on the farm, blending her Indigenous culture and spirituality into this mystery. As you read; you get caught up, the story is so thought provoking and very difficult to put down." —Sandy Herkimer

Educator Information
Recommended for grades 6 to 9. 

This book is part of the Indigenous Spirit of Nature series.

This book is also the second book in the Lillian Mystery series. 

Additional Information
128 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | 10 Black and White Illustrations | Paperback 

The volume brings together two previously published novellas by Richard Wagamese, Him Standing and The Next Sure Thing, with a foreword from author Waubgeshig Rice. Both stories follow the lives of young men who have dreams for a better future. In their search for fame and fortune, Cree Thunderboy and Lucas Smoke end up on paths where their biggest challenge is staying true to themselves.

In Him Standing, Lucas Smoke learns the art of carving from his grandfather. He discovers that he is a natural; he can literally make people come to life in wood. But when Lucas is asked to carve a spirit mask by a mysterious stranger, he quickly learns that his skill with a knife could cost him his dreams.

In The Next Sure Thing, Cree Thunderboy has two things he does well: playing blues guitar and picking winning horses at the track. Picking winners is just meant to be a means to an end—Cree's goal is to make his living playing the blues. He meets a powerful man at the racetrack who convinces him he can parlay his special skill with the horses into a shot at the fame and fortune he seeks.

Celebrated author Richard Wagamese artfully crafts these thrilling yet vulnerable stories of two young men trying to find their place in the world.

Educator Information
Themes: Indigenous, Coming of Age, Own Voice, Carving, Horse Racing.

Both stories in this collection are about a young Indigenous man trying to find his way and leaning on his background and culture to help him.

Both Him Standing and Next Sure Thing have a surreal or magical element. 

Recommended in the Canadian Indigenous Books for Schools resource collection for grades 9 to 12 for English Language Arts.

Additional Information
248 pages | 5.50" x 8.00"

This brilliantly written thriller explores the lives--and deaths--of two girls, and what they will do to win justice. Sure to be one of the most talked-about books of the year!

Nothing's been the same for Beth Teller since the day she died.

Her dad is drowning in grief. He's also the only one who has been able to see and hear her since the accident. But now she's got a mystery to solve, a mystery that will hopefully remind her detective father that he needs to reconnect with the living.

The case takes them to a remote Australian town, where there's been a suspicious fire. All that remains are an unidentifiable body and an unreliable witness found wandering nearby. This witness speaks in riddles. Isobel Catching has a story to tell, and it's a tale to haunt your dreams--but does it even connect to the case at hand?

As Beth and her father unravel the mystery, they find a shocking and heartbreaking story lurking beneath the surface of a small town.

Awards

• Winner of Australia's prestigious Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Writing for Young Adults

Reviews
"An #ownvoices story that empowers its female heroines, giving them pride in their lineage and power in remembering." —Kirkus Reviews, Starred

"An intense, addictive book. Shocking and heartbreaking truths come to light, and the book deftly examines racism, violence, terrible historic injustices and corruption within the police force. This is a book that shows trauma and survival. It's completely gripping, and while highly recommended for young adults, it also deserves a wider readership." —Readings, Australia

"A fusion of ghost story and crime thriller, it also combines poetry and fiction to striking and exciting effect." —The Saturday Paper, Australia

"Fascinating, gripping, innovative." —Magpies Magazine

"A ghost story as well as a psychological thriller, The Things She's Seen seamlessly weaves together the poetic and the everyday. A magnificent and life-giving novel." — Justine Larbalestier

"Terrible crimes lie at the centre here; viewed through the eyes of young women of unquenchable spirit, they can be approached, examined, and ultimately solved. This novel will turn gazes in the right direction, and make the caw of every crow more resonant." —Margo Lanagan

“The two Australian Aboriginal girls at the center of this The Things She’s Seen discover just how poisonous silencing can be and how much power it takes to finally break through it.”—Bulletin

Educator Information
Recommended for ages 12+ | Teen and young adult fiction

Additional Information

Award-winning author Stephen Graham Jones returns with Night of the Mannequins, a contemporary horror story where a teen prank goes very wrong and all hell breaks loose: is there a supernatural cause, a psychopath on the loose, or both?

We thought we'd play a fun prank on her, and now most of us are dead.

One last laugh for the summer as it winds down. One last prank just to scare a friend. Bringing a mannequin into a theater is just some harmless fun, right? Until it wakes up. Until it starts killing.

Luckily, Sawyer has a plan. He’ll be a hero. He'll save everyone to the best of his ability. He'll do whatever he needs to so he can save the day. That's the thing about heroes—sometimes you have to become a monster first.

Reviews
"Suffused with questions about the nature of change and friendship, “Night of the Mannequins” is a fairy tale of impermanence showcasing Graham Jones’s signature style of smart, irreverent horror." —The New York Times

"Stephen Graham Jones’s range and his understanding of horror in fiction and film is staggering. In this novella he juggles—sometimes in very sly ways—slasher stories, coming of age horror, traditions of madness and unreliability, and Kaiju to create an amazingly speedy, voice-driven read that's tons of fun. Each new book of his gives his own take on a different facet of horror, and together they all add up to something really expansive and original." —Brian Evenson, author of Song for the Unraveling of the World

"Readers will delight more than once in the realization that they might be reading a different story from the one they thought was unfolding... trust Jones and enjoy the ride." —Shelf Awareness

Additional Information
144 pages | 5.00" x 8.00"

From the award-winning and #1 bestselling author of The Back of the Turtle; Green Grass, Running Water and The Inconvenient Indian

Thumps DreadfulWater’s world is turned upside down when Nina Maslow, the producer of a true-crime reality-TV show, turns up dead after working on a cold case that Thumps has spent years trying to forget. What’s more, someone seems set on taunting Thumps, leaving reminders of the Obsidian murder case around town. Is it possible that the elusive serial killer who murdered his girlfriend and her daughter all those years ago has resurfaced in Chinook? Or is this the work of a copycat looking to mess with Thumps by stirring up memories from his past?

Dragged back into a case that has haunted him for years, Thumps DreadfulWater is determined to solve the mystery of the Obsidian murders. But as he works the case, he begins to realize just how dangerous the person he is dealing with is—and that he might be the next target.

Thumps DreadfulWater, the sly, wry, reluctant investigator of Cold Skies and A Matter of Malice, returns in another irresistible mystery that only Thomas King could create.

Series Information
This book is from the DreadfulWater Mystery series, a mystery/detective series from Thomas King.

Books in this series include:
- Dreadful Water
- The Red Power Murders
- Cold Skies
- A Matter of Malice
- The Obsidian Murders
- Deep House 
- Double Eagle
- Black Ice

Additional Information
240 pages | 6.00" x 9.00"

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.

Series Information
This novel is part of the DreadfulWater Mystery series from Thomas King. Books in this series include:
- Dreadful Water
- The Red Power Murders
- Cold Skies
- A Matter of Malice
- The Obsidian Murders
- Deep House 
- Double Eagle
- Black Ice

Additional Information

Cole Harper is dead. Reynold McCabe is alive and free. Mihko Laboratories has reopened the research facility and works to manufacture and weaponize the illness that previously plagued Wounded Sky. People are dying. The community has been quarantined. And time is running out. What deal did Eva strike with Choch? Who will defeat Reynold and Mihko?

Reviews
"Robertson’s final installment in this excellent trilogy does not disappoint. He manages to take on important and timely themes while always keeping the reader engaged, engrossed and entertained. Fans will root for this believable cast of characters as they finally get to the truth of the mysterious goings-on at Wounded Sky. I can’t wait to see more from this fine author!”— Susin Nielson, Governor General's Award-winning author, April 2019

Educator & Series Information
Ghosts is the final novel in David A. Robertson's The Reckoner trilogy, it is preceded by Strangers (Book 1) and Monsters (Book 2)

The Reckoner series is recommended Ages: 12-18

Recommended in the Canadian Indigenous Books for Schools 2019-2020 resource list as being useful for grades 9 to 12 for English Language Arts.

This book is available in French: La trilogie Reckoner - Tome 3: Fantômes

Additional Information
230 pages | 5.50" x 8.50"

The final novel from Richard Wagamese, the bestselling and beloved author of Indian Horse and Medicine Walk, centres on an abused woman on the run who finds refuge on a farm owned by an Indigenous man with wounds of his own. A profoundly moving novel about the redemptive power of love, mercy, and compassion--and the land's ability to heal us.

Frank Starlight has long settled into a quiet life working his remote farm, but his contemplative existence comes to an abrupt end with the arrival of Emmy, who has committed a desperate act so she and her child can escape a harrowing life of violence. Starlight takes in Emmy and her daughter to help them get back on their feet, and this accidental family eventually grows into a real one. But Emmy's abusive ex isn't content to just let her go. He wants revenge and is determined to hunt her down. 

Starlight was unfinished at the time of Richard Wagamese's death, yet every page radiates with his masterful storytelling, intense humanism, and insights that are as hard-earned as they are beautiful. With astonishing scenes set in the rugged backcountry of the B.C. Interior, and characters whose scars cut deep even as their journey toward healing and forgiveness lifts us, Starlight is a last gift to readers from a writer who believed in the power of stories to save us.

Additional Information
256 pages | 5.19" x 8.00"

Gina Gallo is a mob goddaughter who doesn't want to be one. She's left her loopy family behind to elope with Pete to Vegas. Except that eloping may be a mortal sin in an Italian family. Between that and some weird deliveries and suitors, Gina's nerves are frayed. Vegas is full of great acts, but one impersonation is real: Gina has a crime-committing double whose activities are making Gina front-page news. Gina has to track down this fiendish fraud before the police catch up with her. And, of course, cousin Nico is along for the ride.

Another madcap adventure for the loveable Gallo cousins that proves the rule "Why should things go right when they can go wrong?"

Educator & Series Information
This book is part of the Rapid Reads series. Rapid Reads are short novels and nonfiction books for young adults aged 16+ and adult readers. They are intended for a diverse audience, including ESL students, reluctant readers, adults who struggle with literacy and anyone who wants a high-interest quick read.

Additional Information
144 pages | 4.75" x 7.25"