Cold Case North

Join us for the launch of Cold Case North: The Search for James Brady and Absolom Halkett on Thursday, November 12 at 7pm ET. RSVP here. 

For fans of true crime, an unsolved mystery of missing persons, police conspiracies, and private investigations in an Indigenous community in northern Canada, Cold Case North offers an evocative and powerful addition. We will be joined by the book’s authors Michael Nest, Deanna Reder and Eric Bell, along with esteemed Crown prosecutor, bestselling author and special guest Harold R. Johnson.

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, and he had enemies everywhere.

In 1967, while prospecting in Saskatchewan with Cree Band Councillor and fellow activist Absolom Halkett, both men vanished without a trace from their remote lakeside camp. For 50 years rumours swirled of secret mining interests, political intrigue, assassination, and murder. Cold Case North is the story of how a small team, with the help of a local 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.

“This engrossing account charts the efforts of three dedicated people to determine the fate of two missing Indigenous men in the north of Canada. [. ..] 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.” —Publisher’s Weekly