Fear and Loathing in Saint John
That headline may lead readers who are hoping for a drug fuelled gonzo rampage bathed in the warmth of a Virgin Island sun to be disappointed by Terry Crawford’s police thriller The Trouble with Jack Ireland (2015), situated as it is in the dead of winter on the northern shore of the Bay of Fundy. That’s the first of Jack’s troubles, setting him up to be flattened by a serious case of flu.
Jack is a 39 year old detective-inspector with the Saint John Police Department. Among his many troubles are the fact that he smokes too many cigarettes (his own and other people’s), he drinks too much booze (ditto), he is still despondent over the death of his wife in a traffic accident a couple of years back, he is not a big believer in following orders and he has the unfortunate habit of adding two and two and getting five. This last fault leads him to chase down blind alleys, to suspect people of things they haven’t done and to ignore the real issues that he should be pursuing. Oh, and someone is trying to kill him, but Jack doesn’t know who and he doesn’t know why.
The story begins on Valentine’s Day 1939. A junior officer, Constable Tom Waterman, telephones to report the death of Eugene Robichaud in the hold of a Norwegian ship. Waterman knows the deceased and thinks he is the victim of foul play. But Deputy Chief Hardfield has already been on the scene and declared the death accidental, shutting down any investigation by the Saint John PD.
There are just too many unanswered questions for Jack to let the matter go. How was it that the DC was on the scene so quickly and so determined to block any official inquiry into Robichaud’s death? What was Robichaud doing on the ship by himself in the first place when the crew had gone ashore for the night? And how did Robichaud manage singlehandedly to raise the hatch on the cargo hold where he was found after an apparent fall from a ladder while he was drunk? Why are some of the German crew members so anxious to keep the police off the ship? So begins an unofficial investigation by Jack and his allies.
Chief among these is Angus Cromarty, the coroner. Another is Penny Fairchild, a chemistry teacher in the nursing program at the General Hospital. Shorty Long runs a lumber yard next to the port where he can keep an eye on what and who is coming and going in the harbour. His casual employees work in other places throughout the city, keeping Shorty up to date on what is happening around town. Lincoln Drummond is a jazz enthusiast like Jack, and knows the scuttlebutt circulating in the city’s music community.
The more Jack learns, the more he becomes aware of what he doesn’t know. In particular, the German sailors seem to be engaged in something more than just handling cargo, and they are pretty ruthless with anyone who tries to find out what. But Jack gets a monkey wrench tossed into his efforts in the form of Wilder Hunter, an American counter-intelligence officer, who invokes the Official Secrets Act as grounds for terminating any further investigation. In the meantime, the bodies keep piling up – or floating up or blowing up. It almost seems like there is a conspiracy afoot to test Dr. Cromarty’s forensic skills, working as he is with 1939 technology.
This story is not all drama and intrigue. There are comedic and romantic episodes too. Crawford, who is a Saint John native, provides a graphic picture of the city and the prevailing atmosphere as Canada and the rest of the world move inexorably closer to the brutal conflict that looms less than six months ahead. Crawford’s expertise as a poet (he has two volumes to his credit) allows him to offer more interesting and vivid descriptions of the characters and the landscape than one finds in most detective fiction. The references to Jack’s experiences growing up in the city add clarity and credibility to Jack’s intimate knowledge of its different neighbourhoods.
One thing I did not understand is how Jack is able to keep his bottles of Coke from freezing solid in his knapsack when he and Lincoln are forced to hike across the frozen Saint John River on a 10° C day. Any future edition of this book should include a map of Saint John so the reader can follow Jack’s peregrinations up alleys, over walls, under fences and through gardens.
Bias alert does require that I cop to having known Terry Crawford for about 25 years. However, I did pay for this book, which is not something that can be said for most of the books I review, even if it was an under-the-counter transaction in a graveyard in Auburn, NS.
The Trouble with Jack Ireland is now available in the Lennoxville Library. Keep your calendar clear for 5 until 7 on Thursday, October 17, when the Library will be holding its Adopt-a-book fundraising event. Adopt a new book for the Library’s collection by paying 75% of its cover price and get first call on reading the book and a tax receipt for a charitable donation. Readers who can’t make it for Thursday will still be able to adopt books on Friday the 18th and Saturday the 19th, but they will miss the wine and cheese reception, and the door prizes.