Top positive review
4.0 out of 5 starsOK, but not Thomas King’s best
Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on March 21, 2023
While I kinda thought I’d done a review of this book quite some time back, it has been made apparent that that never occurred, and so somewhat belatedly I offer these few thoughts:
Thumps DreadfulWater is an ex-cop who’s decided photography is an easier/safer way to make a living, and perhaps in many ways both of those things should be true. But, (and there’s almost always a but . . . .)
Careers ex- and present clash when he’s called by the local law to take crime scene pics of a dead body which finds him involved in matters of a personal nature that, in turn, leads to getting his dormant cop juices flowing again. In a nutshell: The body (and I can’t recall if the ‘living’ occupant of same was ever named) was found in a condo at the local Indian Band’s luxury resort; the woman who heads up the Tribal Council - the resort’s owner is, a) a frequent bed-mate of Thumps, and, b) the mother of the prime suspect in the body's coming to be. Thus, though Thumps would most definitely have preferred to simply take a few pics and go home, his tenacious dog-with-a-bone cop instincts are not gonna let that happen.
All that sets it up to be a fairly entertaining story, and in the grand scheme of things I guess it is. The plot is quite solid and the characters decently defined, BUT (ya knew there was gonna be one of those!) I just didn’t find it to be all that I thought King capable of. There’s a lot of potential for ‘Thumps’ to become a really strong figure, and maybe that development is already occurring in the other DreadfulWater’s books he’s already added to the series. I hope so, and expect I’ll try on another one to see if I find a better fit. King is a good storyteller and almost everything else of his I’ve read means I dread not taking a chance on another of his “Dreadful” stories. Feeling magnanimous, I’ve bumped by rating from 3½ to 4 stars.
