
The author of Forty Words for Sorrow-winner of Britain's Silver Dagger Award-returns with a crime thriller challenging our most cherished belief: that, in fiction, there is no such thing as the perfect crime. The small city of Algonquin Bay in northern Ontario: A freak warm front has moved in, making it feel like April and rousing hungry bears from hibernation. So when Ivan Bergeron's dog brings him the chewed-off arm of a white male, it's assumed the victim met a natural if ugly end. Except, as it turns out, the owner of the arm was dead before the bears got to him. A second victim is found: a woman, apparently raped. There has to be a connection-two bodies abandoned in the woods within days of each other can't be a coincidence. Then police records reveal a long-unsolved murder with the same MO: a woman found in the woods, seemingly raped. It isn't long before homicide detectives Delorme and Cardinal are led back thirty years to another unsolved murder, this one linked to Quebec terrorists. Logic suggests the Algonquin Bay murders are connected to this case. Evidence is less convincing. And somewhere, a murderer-smart and powerful-is walking free.
Publisher:
New York, N.Y. : G.P.Putnam's Sons, [2003]
Copyright Date:
©2003
ISBN:
9780399148651
0399148655
0399148655
Branch Call Number:
F
Characteristics:
301 pages ; 24 cm


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Add a CommentThis was an interesting low-key murder mystery full of Canadian references to the October Crisis, provincial politics, local policing, the RCMP, CSIS, and the CIA. Actually a little confusing sometimes to keep all the bureaucracies and their roles separate and straight, but that's life. Detective John Cardinal and his partner Detective Lise Delorme work methodically to unravel many threads, and in the end we understand what happened but are left frustrated. This can happen with murder cases. The setting of Northern Ontario during an ice storm heightens the frustration level - how to actually investigate while trying to manage the weather is an unwanted challenge.
Well written. Subtle humour. Interesting plot. Realistic, yet restrained in relation to violence and language. I'm surprised I'd never heard of this author before, considering the quality of the writing.
See Giles Blunt at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival on Sat. Aug. 7, 2010. Part of the Celebrated Writers Series. www.stratfordshakespearefestival.com/celebratedwriters
I love this author and the fact that he is from Ontario. I didn't particularly like the ending of this book though.