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

This engrossing account charts the efforts of three dedicated people to determine the fate of two missing Indigenous men in the north of Canada. James Brady, a respected Indigenous activist who helped establish the Métis Association, and Absalom Halkett, a Cree band councillor, disappeared in June 1967 while prospecting in northern Saskatchewan. After a cursory investigation, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police concluded the men, both experienced prospectors, had gotten lost. In 2007, Reder, a Cree-Métis literary critic related to the two missing men, decided to try to find out what really happened. She enlisted the help of researcher Nest and Bell, a member of the Lac La Ronge Indian band. The team doggedly pursued every avenue, including the theory that Brady and Halkett’s two business partners killed them after they discovered a big uranium find. Eventually, the authors learned that at the time of the disappearance, a fishing guide and an American tourist found a body with tied wrists near the lake where Brady and Halkett were last seen, but didn’t report it. The authors hired a scanner and divers, who believed they’d identified a body in the lake, but the RCMP Historic Case Unit wanted more proof that there was actually a body to be found. Reder and her team didn’t reach any conclusive answers before running out of funds. Meticulously researched, this smoothly written tale of injustice showcases the authors’ tenacity and arouses the reader’s indignation. This is a scathing rebuke of the RCMP’s failure to take the case of missing Indigenous people seriously. (Nov.)