Intriguing trio of tales to die for
Canadian crime fiction continues to move from strength to strength. And the evidence is indisputable in the latest entries from authors Gail Bowen, Linwood Barclay and Ian Hamilton, writes Jamie Portman.
What’s Left Behind Gail Bowen McClelland & Stewart
Socially conscious Regina novelist Bowen has been adroitly communicating her own particular urban vision over the course of 16 crime novels featuring her sometimes accidental sleuth, the intrepid Joanne Kilbourn. That vision may often seem like wish fulfilment, but it’s potent. Bowen’s latest book, What’s Left Behind, again reflects the progressive side of Saskatchewan politics, as Joanne and her lawyer husband Zack, now the reformist mayor of the Queen City, continue their fight to make Regina a better city for all.
In this instance, a crucial referendum is about to take place on proposed bylaws that would curb the power of unscrupulous developers. And in the course of a polarizing campaign, someone near and dear to Joanna will be murdered.
Bowen’s fictional world engulfs the reader so completely that the solving of a crime becomes more than just a diverting puzzle. People who really matter die in Bowen’s books. Grief and loss are genuine emotions. Indeed, this latest carries more than one reminder that life is finite. Joanna is approaching 60, and there’s a sobering moment when she reflects that Zack, a paraplegic, may have only a few more years to live.
So there are intimations of mortality as Joanne and those near and dear to her get older. But the novel’s social conscience doesn’t lead to an impossibly idealized culture: This, for example, is a book in which gay rights and gay marriage are considered a given — yet Bowen is confident enough to make one of her nastiest characters a homosexual. It’s all part of creating a credible world — a world where you prepare to celebrate Pride Week while also consulting the Old Farmer’s Almanac for advice on when to start seeding the garden. In brief it’s a world unique to Canadian crime fiction.
Far From True Linwood Barclay Doubleday
Property developers also lurk in the background of Far From True, the gripping second instalment of Linwood Barclay’s trilogy about sinister happenings in the upper New York state community of Promise Falls. Whereas Gail Bowen’s novels are firmly anchored in the political and social culture of Regina, Barclay’s Promise Falls is essentially a product of his fertile imagination — and it achieves its own solid reality.
The new novel begins with catastrophic incident at a rundown drive-in theatre on its final night of operation. An investigation into the deaths of two victims of the disaster leads to further evidence that Promise Falls is suffering frightening fault lines.
Doughnut-munching cop Barry Duckworth — a fixture of Broken Promises, the first book in the trilogy — has become one of Barclay’s most likable creations. Here, he’s coping with multiple challenges — two murders, an attempted kidnapping, a missing wife, an ex-cop with a propensity to violence, an underground sex ring. Furthermore, sinister events having to do with the number 23 — events that were already causing fear within the community in the first novel — are spiralling out of control.
The first novel had a cliffhanger ending, but Far From True’s impact is not dependent on reading its predecessor. It works beautifully on its own as a standalone novel. And the trilogy’s sleazy former mayor, continuing to plot a return to city hall, is a character to die for.
The Princeling of Nanjing Ian Hamilton Spiderline
Ian Hamilton’s latest Ava Lee adventure, The Princeling Of Nanjing, doesn’t erupt into violence until we’re more than 200 pages into the book. But that doesn’t matter with an author who’s also a whiz at racking up suspense from the world of high finance. Furthermore, Hamilton’s Chinese-Canadian heroine is one of a kind. Ava is gay, a diminutive five-foot-three, a ruthless martial-arts adversary, a brilliant forensic accountant and a woman whose own unique moral code sometimes has her operating on the fringes of the law — but only, we would like to believe, in order to deal with the really bad guys.
In this latest adventure, she’s taking on China’s corrupt power elite as represented by Tsai Ling, powerful governor of a Chinese province and head of a family syndicate whose unsavoury ten- tacles extend across oceans. Tsai is scary enough even to give the invincible Ava a few shivers when she finally encounters him in person. The result is another exotic thriller that also offers a fascinating inside look at fiscal misconduct in China. We may well ask whether Ava is really this invincible — but perhaps we shouldn’t. As a unique series character, she’s become indispensable.