Ghost Detective

By: Zachary Muswagon

Narrated by: Doug Holdham

The compliance officer for a First Nations band has been shot in the head and left for dead. Unable to cross over to the great hunting grounds, Billy Ghostkeeper must stay and discover who murdered him and why.

Through strange, funny, and sometimes harrowing adventures, Billy and his gang of “detectives” discover there could be three reasons why he was killed. It could be that the culprit is a dangerous person or group willing to do anything or sacrifice anyone in order to keep control of the band's natural resources.

©2012 Zachary Muswagon (P)2020 Eschia Books

Funny, but has some depth

Setting: Alberta, Canada
Genre: Mystery, ghost story, folklore

Billy Ghostkeeper, assistant to the Compliance Officer for his First Nations band, wakes with a horrible hangover, thinking that his fall off the wagon of 13 years of sobriety must have been epic, because he can’t remember a thing. Then he notices his surroundings — a ravine in a park where people are known to party, with a talking crow. Oh, and his own corpse. No, he didn’t fall off the wagon, the massive headache he is feeling was caused by a bullet to the brain.
The Crow informs him, in a very irritating manner, that he is Billy’s Spirit Guide, and that he, Billy, must discover who murdered him and why before he can move on to the great hunting grounds. So with the help of his younger cousin Dale (an IT guy and gangsta wannabe who lives in the city), their Auntie Keena (village elder and healer), and Crow, Billy looks for answers. He must also learn to ghost as he goes, to accept that he is dead and no longer subject to the physical world.
The plot of this book, while not unique, is well-developed and kept my interest. The characters are three-dimensional, and I found myself liking and sympathizing with them. And I laughed out loud at much of the dialogue and situations.
This book is a basic cozy mystery with the twist of non-Western cultural perspective and folklore. It is also humorous and violent. But beneath that, it highlights an important issue for many of us. How do we answer the question; what do we give up, who do we become, when we accept “that’s just the way it is” when we see injustice?
This audiobook was originally recorded for the blind. The narration by Doug Holdham was excellent as he caught the personalities of the characters well, and differentiated between them with pitch and tempo.