Through Will’s gentle and humorous narrative, we come to know Medicine River, a small Albertan town bordering a Blackfoot reserve. And we meet its people: the basketball team; Louise Heavyman and her daughter, South Wing; Martha Oldcrow, the marriage doctor; Joe Bigbear, Harlen’s world-travelling, storytelling brother; Bertha Morley, who has a short fling with a Calgary dating service; and David Plume, who went to Wounded Knee. At the centre of it all is Harlen, advising and pestering, annoying and entertaining, gossiping and benevolently interfering in the lives of his friends and neighbours.

From the award-winning and #1 bestselling author of Sufferance and Indians on Vacation

When a body is found in an airport rental car, Thumps DreadfulWater learns that the deceased was developing a revolutionary technology. The technology is new, but could it be so valuable that someone would kill for it?

Thumps DreadfulWater has finally found some peace and quiet. His past as a California cop now far behind him, he’s living out his retirement as a fine-arts photographer in the small town of Chinook. His health isn’t great, and he could use a new stove, but as long as he’s got his cat and a halfway decent plate of eggs, life is good.

All of that changes when a body turns up on the eve of a major water conference and the understaffed sheriff’s department turns to Thumps for help. Thumps wants none of it, but even he is intrigued when he learns that the deceased was developing a new technology that could revolutionize water and oil drilling . . . and that could also lose some very powerful people a lot of money. As strangers begin to pour into Chinook for the conference, Thumps finds himself sinking deeper and deeper into a conflict between secretive players who will not hesitate to kill to get what they want.

With a plethora of superb reviews and upcoming publication in the US, Thomas King’s latest work affirms him as one of our wittiest and wisest writers. Truth & Bright Water is the tale of two young cousins and one long summer. Tecumseh and Lum live in Truth, a small American town, and Bright Water, the reserve across the border and over the river. Family is the only reason most of the people stay in the towns, and yet old secrets and new mysteries keep pulling the more nomadic residents back to the fold.

Monroe Swimmer, famous Indian artist, returns to live in the old church with the hope of painting it into the prairie landscape and re-establishing the buffalo population. Tecumseh’s Aunt Cassie has come back too, already arguing with his mother. Why has his mother given Cassie a suitcase full of baby clothes? And why is Lum interested only in winning the Indian Days race?

Tecumseh has more questions than anyone will answer, until the Indian Days festival arrives and the mysteries of the summer collide in love, betrayal and reconciliation. Equally plainspoken and poetic, comic and poignant, Truth & Bright Water is a crackling good story that resonates with universal truths.

Thomas King has been called "one of the first rank of contemporary Native American writers—a gifted storyteller of universal relevance" by Publishers Weekly.One Good Story, That One is a collection steeped in native oral tradition and shot through with King's special brand of wit and comic imagination. These highly acclaimed stories conjure up Native and Judeo-Christian myths, present-day pop culture and literature, while mixing in just the right amount of perception and experience.

Auntie Beth was the black sheep of the family, who made her way through seven husbands (not counting the Indian, there were six). But when she dies in a scuba-diving accident, leaving two-and-a-half-million dollars behind, her relations suddenly see her in a more positive light.

A Short History of Indians in Canada, Thomas King’s bestselling collection of twenty tales, is a comic tour de force, showcasing the author at his hilarious and provocative best. With his razor-sharp observations and mystical characters, including the ever-present and ever-changing Coyote, King pokes a sharp stick into the gears of the Native myth-making machine, exposing the underbelly of both historical and contemporary Native-White relationships. Through the laughter, these stories shimmer brightly with the universal truths that unite us.

HarperCollins brings great works of literature to life in digital format, upholding the highest standards in ebook production and celebrating reading in all its forms. Look for more titles in the HarperCollins short-stories collection to build your digital library.

Timely, important, mischievous, powerful: in a word, exceptional

Seventy-seven poems intended as a eulogy for what we have squandered, a reprimand for all we have allowed, a suggestion for what might still be salvaged, a poetic quarrel with our intolerant and greedy selves, a reflection on mortality and longing, as well as a long-running conversation with the mythological currents that flow throughout North America.