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KALEIDOSCOPE
by Gail Bowen
McClelland & Stewart, April 2012
336 pages
$29.99 CAD
ISBN: 0771016891


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

As Joanne Kilbourn retires from her teaching position at the university, her colleagues present her not with a carriage clock but with a hand-made kaleidoscope engraved with a statement of Joanne's deeply held conviction that "Security for any one of us lies in greater abundance for all of us." It is a lesson that is very rapidly to be brought home to Joanne within weeks.

This thirteenth in Bowen's series set in Regina, Saskatchewan and centred on Joanne and her family and friends relentlessly repeats the lesson, as first, the Kilbourn home is blown up, they are forced to move to new accommodations, and her family divides into opposite sides in the battle over the future of a down-and-out neighbourhood slated to be redeveloped into a gentrified area of condos, cafes, and other middle-class amenities. Leland Hunter, a close friend, is the developer, one who hopes to consult closely with the community over his plans and who already owns a renovated condo in the area, but he is being vigorously opposed by a group calling themselves the "Warriors," some of whom are genuinely committed to the local community, others not so much. One of their leaders, Riel Delorme, a Métis who once idolized Che, is now living with Joanne's daughter Mieka, which makes for some considerable strain.

Further complicating matters is Leland's ex-wife, Louise, a confirmed drunk given to moaning inconsolably over the loss of her husband (who nevertheless treats her with great generosity) and bursting in uninvited on various social occasions. The fact that Zack, Joanne's second husband, a high-powered lawyer who has been confined to a wheelchair for many years, is defending a slum landlord against a murder charge isn't much help either. So if Joanne is imagining that retirement will mean a graceful withdrawal from the stresses and strains of ordinary existence, she should think again.

If there is a constant theme in this novel (as indeed, in many of the previous entries), it is that those in a privileged position must give back in return for what they have. It is an unexceptionable idea, a moral position, but embodying it in a crime novel is not as easy as it might seem. One problem is that while losing one's home and some of one's precious possessions is difficult to bear, it is made a lot easier if, as in Joanne's case, a dear friend stands at the ready to supply a beautifully renovated condo, complete with an entire, two-bedroom suite for Joanne's fourteen year old daughter, where she can do her art (after protective surfacing is carefully installed over the hardwood). Under similar circumstances, most of us wind up couch-surfing or, if we're lucky, in a hotel. Nor do most have the kind of friends who will supply gourmet meals for six on a regular basis. If there is a lesson here, it is that money can't buy absolutely safety, but it sure can buy a lot of comforts. Joanne and her friends do sincerely want to do good, but sadly, their idea of it is tempered by their own privilege. The vision Leland has for his redevelopment (a kind of urban garden suburb) never seems to be predicated on any consideration of what the present residents might in fact want or even be comfortable with, nor is any concession made to the idea that, as gritty and desperate as a slum may appear, it has its own forms of community.

The solution to the various crimes that punctuate this novel takes second place to the moral reflection and the resolution emerges not dramatically but in a narration of off-stage events, not a particularly gripping way to conclude a crime novel. In short, Gail Bowen has done better, much better, in the past. One hopes, however, that she will not follow her heroine into retirement but come back strongly (and a bit less tendentiously) next time.

§ Yvonne Klein is a writer, translator, and retired college English professor who lives in Montreal.

Reviewed by Yvonne Klein, April 2012

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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