A delightful Diamond of writing in rough land
The weather is the first strange thing. Cold, brittle winter should be setting in well north of Lake Superior, in Ontario’s Northern Divide region, but instead there’s a long, disorienting warmth and sunshine that makes the world feel tense and off-kilter.
In the city of Springfield, cop Frank Yakabuski believes this: “When the proper reference points get lost, when the seasons up and walk away on you, he was of the opinion bad things would follow.”
And so they do, in a city divided by class, history, ancient feuds and current greeds, set in a landscape of rock, river and wilderness — all created with loving depth of detail by Ottawa journalist and novelist Ron Corbett.
Yakabuski made his first appearance in Corbett’s Ragged Lake. While the new novel isn’t exactly a sequel, some of Ragged Lake’s events and characters affect it, so it might be helpful to read it first. Still, that’s not essential, since enough of the past can be gleaned or guessed from the present.
The precipitating event of Cape Diamond is the discovery of the body of a big man in a three-piece suit.
The man, whose eyes have been gouged out, is Augustus Morrissey, leader of the Irish gang called the Shiners.
Not only this murder but also the removal of the eyes is, Yakabuski instantly recognizes, symbolic of old horrors and customs, and signs of very big trouble to come.
It’s a long time before anyone can account for not only the missing eyes, but the large, extremely valuable diamond left inside Morrissey’s mouth.
Corbett is a skilled writer whose gifts go beyond depicting the typical crimenovel hurly-burly of complex plot and violent acts. He’s also good at revealing emotions that range from the turbulent to the quieter workings of a smart, fretful investigative brain.
If, as seems likely, a third Frank Yakabuski novel is in the works, readers might do well to prepare for both the physical and emotional landscapes by studying the backdrops offered by Ragged Lake and Cape Diamond.
They may not be diamonds, exactly, but they’re worthwhile investments.