Obsidian

 by Thomas King

This is a mystery about a retired police officer Thumps Dreadfulwater.  He is devastated that his girlfriend and her daughter were murdered as part of a series of murders being referred to as the Obsidian murders.

He had left California and ended up in a place called Chinook in the U.S. west.  He goes back to California but doesn't find anything new.  Then some Hollywood people show up saying they want to do a movie about the serial killings based on the obsidian murders.  They feed Thumps a bit of info he didn't know, i.e. that his lover was married, her husband had been in jail, but got out prior to the murders.  Thumps doesn't really want to work with them but he does want to solve the crime.

Then some strange things start happening, a woman, a researcher for the movie people is murdered and has a piece of obsidian in her mouth, then a classic car with an obsidian paint job is stolen. Thumps starts to think the serial killer is stalking/teasing him now.

Eventually they figure out that the killer actually set up other people as the perpetrators of several serial killings and then staged their suicides.  It turns out one of the movie guys is the serial killer.

It was a light read, I was surprised that King had such uncomplimentary names for the native characters in his book and a black policeman who comes to help Thumps refers to him as Tonto.

Having read another book by King, On the Back of the Turtle, which I thought was very good, this was a bit light and disappointing.