About
Reviews
Search
Submit
Home

Mystery Books for Sale

[ Home ]
[ About | Reviews | Search | Submit ]


  

BY THE TIME YOU READ THIS
by Giles Blunt
Random House Canada, October 2006
320 pages
$32.95 CDN
ISBN: 0679312447


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

When last we met John Cardinal, it was spring, blackfly season, and he was having difficulty keeping his mind on his job for worrying about his wife's mental state. Catherine, a long-time sufferer from bi-polar disorder, seemed on the edge of a manic episode.

But, as this, perhaps the strongest novel in the series opens, it is autumn, she has stabilized, in part thanks to a local psychiatrist, and is looking forward to a new photographic project. Thus it is doubly devastating when Cardinal is called to the scene of a sudden death only to discover Catherine's shattered body, killed in a fall from a tall building.

Both coroner and police quickly decide that Catherine, so often subject to dark depression, committed suicide, especially since a note in her handwriting was found at the scene. Cardinal is not convinced. Not only is he experiencing the typical feelings of guilt and inadequacy of those who are left alive after a suicide but also someone is sending him a series of fake sympathy cards that charge him precisely with the failures of affection that he already suspects himself of.

He embarks on a series of awkward, desperate, and unofficial investigations in the hope of discovering that his wife did not die by her own hand, but was aided on her way by someone else.

But he is still on the force and, after he returns from compassionate leave, he and his partner Lise Delorme are urgently trying to find who it was that sexually molested a little girl, photographed the acts somewhere in the vicinity of Algonquin Bay, and posted the photos on the internet.

As this is a small city, it is not surprising that the official and the unofficial investigations overlap, providing for a tightly constructed plot. As Delorme and Cardinal poke about, the reader gets a strong sense of what life is like in this northern town, far different from the moosemeat and igloo vision of the place held in the softer south.

Giles Blunt has written for LAW & ORDER and there is a flavour of 'ripped from the headlines' about the kiddie porn thread. Still, the novel is far from slick and unaffecting. Cardinal's search for relief from his unrelenting pain and grief is deeply moving. Though the two protagonists pursue their investigations to a satisfactory conclusion, these circumstances do not allow for any happy endings. John Cardinal is facing a very cold winter.

Reviewed by Yvonne Klein, November 2006

[ Top ]


QUICK SEARCH:

 

Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


[ About | Reviews | Search | Submit ]
[ Home ]