ABOUT THE BOOK

OMAND’S CREEK

As the story opens, Detective Sergeant Michael Shelter is confronted with the body of a young Indigenous woman who has been strangled and left on the banks of Omand’s Creek. Similarities between this murder and one a month earlier lead Shelter to believe he’s dealing with a killer preying on sex workers in the city’s large Indigenous community. But his certainty soon evaporates and the mystery deepens.

Helped by his Indigenous partner and the victim’s defiant sister, Shelter uncovers a trail of corruption, racism and long-held secrets that reach into the city’s elite. As he races to solve the mystery, he also struggles to raise his fifteen-year-old daughter as a single father.

Omand’s Creek appears at a time of intense concern about systemic racism in Canada and violence against Indigenous women. A national commission of inquiry investigated the killing and disappearance of more than 1,200 Indigenous women and girls (according to RCMP statistics, 4,000, according to activists and families). Its final report contained 231 recommendations and declared that violence against First Nations, Metis and Inuit women and girls was a form of genocide.

I was selected on the basis of the first half of this novel to participate in the Crime Fiction Writing Residency at the Banff Centre, where I studied under bestselling international authors Michael Robotham and Louise Welsh. Omand’s Creek was a finalist for the Crime Writers of Canada’s award for best unpublished crime novel.