The Murder of Medicine Bear is the story of an Alberta river and of the people who live near its banks. In her most ambitious work to date, Haley interweaves the lives of three generations of natives and whites. Both communities reside in the shadow of an ever-looming mega-project which threatens to dam the river and either save or destroy a way of life, depending on your perspective. At the centre of the novel is the unexpected reunion of an eccentric young band chief, Tim Steen, with his sister, Marina, from whom he was estranged as a child after the brutal murder of their mother. Moving forward and backward in time, Haley paints a compassionate portrait of reservation life and of the complex, sometimes tragic interrelationships between whites and natives.