Under the whimsical pseudonym of Hartley GoodWeather, Thomas King has published two detective novels, or “mysteries,” to date. DreadfulWater Shows Up came out in 2002 as the first installment in a planned series of altogether four novels on Cherokee freelance investigator Thumps DreadfulWater. It was followed by The Red Power Murders: A DreadfulWater Mystery in 2006. The original front cover of Dreadful-Water Shows Up sported only the pseudonym, but the author's true identity would have been evident to devoted readers of King's work: a small photo on the back flap showed the author as film-noir sleuth, complete with trench, fedora, and a face sunk in deep, portentous shadow. King claims that the book did not sell (J. Wilson 2009), which apparently motivated a change in design. A second edition from 2002 revealed in huge letters the mastermind behind the alias: “THOMAS KING writing as Hartley GoodWeather.”

Given the predictable marketing edge that comes with a well-known author's name, the question arises as to why King had originally opted for a pseudonym. Asked about the quirky writer's persona of “Hartley GoodWeather,” King explained that he “wanted to separate [his] serious work from [his] detective fiction” (in J. Wilson 2009; see also Simard 2002). While the author acknowledges a soft spot for his mysteries (“I quite like them. I don't think they're badly written, I think they're a lot of fun. I think they're a decent attempt at the genre,” in J. Wilson 2009), he apparently wishes to emphasize a difference—in both kind and quality—between the mysteries and the rest of his oeuvre.