Omand's Creek

"Omand''s Creek is the best Canadian crime debut in recent memory." - The Montreal Gazette 

A young woman has been brutally murdered, her body left on the banks of Omand''s Creek. Similarities with the murder a month earlier lead Detective Michael Shelter to believe he''s dealing with a killer preying on sex workers in the city''s large Indigenous community. He soon realizes he''s facing a far more cunning adversary than he''d imagined.

As he races to find the killer, Shelter uncover a trail of corruption, racist violence and long-held secrets that reach into the city''s elite. Along the way, he struggles to raise his defiant teenage daughter as a single father and come to terms with the reality of racism in the city and his own blind spots.

Omand''s Creek appears at a time of intense concern about systemic racism in Canada and violence against Indigenous women. A national commission of inquiry investigated the killing and disappearance of more than 1,200 Indigenous women and girls (according to RCMP statistics, 4,000, according to activists and families). Its final report contained 231 recommendations and declared that violence against First Nations, Metis and Inuit women and girls was a form of genocide.

Don Macdonald was selected on the basis of this novel to participate in the Crime Fiction Writing Residency at the Banff Centre, where he studied under bestselling international authors Michael Robotham and Louise Welsh. Omand''s Creek was a finalist for the Crime Writers of Canada''s award for best unpublished crime novel.