Cold Case North: The Search for James Brady and Absolom Halkett

Shortlisted, Crime Writers of Canada Awards of Excellence, The Brass Knuckles Award for Best Nonfiction Crime Book, 2021

Tells the story of the unsolved murder of indigenous activists, police investigation misconduct, and the community who tracked down the clues which officials failed to uncover

Missing persons. Double murder? Métis leader James Brady was one of the most famous Indigenous activists in Canada. A communist, strategist, and bibliophile, he led Métis and First Nations to rebel against government and church oppression. Brady’s success made politicians and clergy fear him; he had enemies everywhere. In 1967, while prospecting in Saskatchewan with Cree Band Councillor and fellow activist, Absolom Halkett, both men vanished from their remote lakeside camp. For 50 years rumours swirled of secret mining interests, political intrigue, and murder. Cold Case North is the story of how a small team, with the help of the Indigenous community, exposed police failure in the original investigation, discovered new clues and testimony, and gathered the pieces of the North’s most enduring missing persons puzzle.

Michael Nest is the award-winning author of three non-fiction books. Corruption, mining and conflict are the theme of the first two. The third, Still a Pygmy, is a collaboration with Congolese activist Isaac Bacirongo, the first Indigenous Pygmy to ever publish his memoir. Michael’s ‘day job’ is preventing corruption in government and in the mining sector. He lives in Montréal.

Deanna Reder (Cree-Métis), Associate Professor in the Departments of English and First Nations Studies at Simon Fraser University, teaches Indigenous literatures, especially autobiography. Her SSHRC-funded research project, "The People and the Text" makes extensive use of library and archival methods, in collaboration with Indigenous research networks, to uncover forgotten or lost work by Canadian Indigenous authors. She has worked collaboratively to edit four anthologies and is the series editor of the Indigenous Studies Series for Wilfrid Laurier University Press.

Eric Bell is a member of the Lac La Ronge Indian Band. He has owned and operated La Ronge Emergency Medical Services for 25 years and was a Park Warden for 23 years with Parks Canada.  His involvement in this search is personal as he remembers Jim Brady, who was a friend of the family, and Abbie Halkett, a fellow community member. Eric lives in La Ronge, SK.