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This fifth case in the series begins with a woman walking into Russell Quaint’s office to ask him to locate her son, Matthew Ridge. According to her, she lost track of him twenty years ago when he was placed in a reform school after a number of brushes with the law. A new (and wealthy) widow, she can afford to hire the Saskatoon private investigator for the job. So Russell begins digging. Menaced by some unknown figure at each step, Russell interviews a series of connections the boy made in high school before his sentence, at work after he got out, and later in a church. He discovers that upon release young Ridge became Matthew Moxley. This Matthew is, at the present, on a philanthropic mission somewhere in South Africa. All of Russell’s cases invariably take him somewhere far out of Saskatoon. For nearly half of this case he is in Africa, often in the company of Cassandra Wellness, a woman he meets on the flight over. Still threatened by one or more men, he zigzags from South Africa to Botswana in an effort to track down Moxley, going first to a shanty town outside Capetown (where he learns about “ubuntu”), later to a safari camp (where he engages in a “sundowner,” a drinking ritual an American calls, “The only good thing the British gave to Africa”), and on to a final showdown at Chobe. You have noticed that, despite all the details I am providing, I am being rather vague about most of the specifics of the case. My ploy is deliberate. To say much more about this multilayered work is to risk letting slip too many spoilers. The ending, back in Saskatoon, is as satisfactory as any I have recently encountered, but I was not expecting it. Yet the author plays scrupulously fair with the reader. If the mystery is totally engaging, Russell’s personal development is as compelling. While in Africa, he provides copious travel notes to entertain and educate the reader. These are not merely decorative, but central both to Russell's detecting and to his spiritual quest, which began in the previous novel, STAIN OF THE BERRY, on his trip beyond the Arctic Circle, and that here culminates in his enlightenment about an ethical philosophy developed on the African continent. Ubuntu is defined in the novel as "humanity to others." The concept is also described as "I am what I am because of who we all are." People are defined by their relationship to others; the community nurtures and safeguards its members. At the case’s end Russell understands ubuntu on an intimate level. “Saskatchewan ubuntu” protects him now as, he realizes, it has protected him in earlier cases. One senses that this is the author’s most personal novel to date. Presumably much of what happens to Russell in Africa must have happened to the writer, whose safari photograph appears on the back cover. But the experience has been transformed via Russell’s experiences into something more universal. Though the novel stands completely on its own, readers who have followed the series will encounter old acquaintances. Russell’s wonderful mother shows up briefly. His friends Jared and Anthony are wrestling with Jared’s depression subsequent to the attack (in the previous novel) on his model face. The constable with whom Russell always spars continues his customary role. Russell makes a breakthrough in his understanding of the mysterious Sereena. And his relationship with Alex Canyon, with whom he began an affair in the previous novel, moves to a new level. These returning characters make only cameo appearances, but they seem more integral to Russell’s life as that life becomes more integrated. Upon finishing the novel, the reader might wish to return to the comical opening scenes. One can find all kinds of playful symbolic meanings in Russell’s encounter with “Mr. Crow” and his near asphyxiation. Despite all the darkness in the novel, this is the author’s most joyful to date. It is also his finest, a work that radiates a deep sense of humanity and wisdom.
Reviewed by Drewey Wayne Gunn, April 2008
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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