COPPER MOUNTAIN
VALERIE VAN CLIEAF

Porteous Publishing
Vancouver, Canada
ALSO BY VALERIE VAN CLIEAF
Blue Star
Red Paint
Copper Mountain © 2024 Valerie Van Clieaf
Published by Porteous Publishing
Porteous Publishing is a registered trademark.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication data is available upon request.
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, places, and dialogue are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Cities and locations, where they do exist, have been used fictitiously.
Copper Mountain / Valerie Van Clieaf
eBook ISBN 978-0-9952180-6-2
Cover Design © 2024 Jerry Todd. All rights reserved.
INDEX
For my dear, dear friend, Kristen Tyndall, who was always there, and still is, with a good meal, a glass of wine and wise words
“We need to put justice back in charge, and to do that, we need to put compassion back in the service of law and law in the service of humanity. We need the rule of justice, not just the rule of law. Otherwise, what’s the point of law? Or lawyers? What good is the rule of law if there’s no justice?”
Justice Rosalie Abella
Acknowledgments
I am grateful to be able to live and work in the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the Nłeʔkepmx Tmíxʷ, S’ólh Téméxw and Stz'uminus people. These are lands of incredible beauty.
Many thanks to my editor, Warren Layberry, for his usual stellar work. It is, as always, greatly appreciated.
The novel is set in the city of Kamloops and the surrounding area, on the traditional, unceded territory of the Secwépemc First Nation and in Vancouver, on the traditional, unceded territory of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, and səlilwətaɬ First Nations.