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Nothing has been heard of John Cardinal since he last appeared four years ago in BY THE TIME YOU READ THIS (UK: FIELDS OF GRIEF) and given his devastating loss in that novel, readers may have wondered if Blunt had exhausted the character. Happily, he has not. Cardinal has moved into a modern apartment building and is trying to recover from the loss of his wife. Crime has been slow in Algonquin Bay of late, so he's been set to work on a (very) cold case, which gives rise to a lot of jokes in the squad room. But the quiet is spectacularly broken when two headless bodies are found seated at a table in a house that is on the market. They are difficult to identify, but appear to have some connection with the fur auction about to take place in town. They are Russian, so could the Russian mafia be involved? Who they are, why they died, and who murdered them emerges only after a meticulous and believable police investigation headed by Cardinal, who can put his cold case aside for the moment. It is an investigation that demonstrates that even a small city police department like Cardinal's can produce results, but it is also one that comes very close to getting both Cardinal and his partner, Lise Delorme, killed. The elements that made the first four in this series so compelling are here in abundance - strong plotting, rich characterization, an appreciation for the countryside and the natural beauty of the north. As well, the imperative moral considerations that informed Blunt's recent stand alones - the comic NO SUCH CREATURE and the very far from comic BREAKING LORCA - are here as well, vividly and unexpectedly. Is there a point at which someone is so deeply involved in wrong-doing that he is hopelessly depraved? Should we ever despair of moral redemption? Phrasing it this way runs the risk of implying that the book is stodgy with existential considerations and that is very far from the case. What Blunt does here is remind us that an engrossing, entertaining, and exciting crime novel can also contain a hard centre of serious substance and be all the better for it. § Yvonne Klein is a writer, translator, and retired college English professor who lives in Montreal.
Reviewed by Yvonne Klein, August 2010
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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