Looking for a last-minute stocking stuffer? Something for
that crime-obsessed brother-in-law? A vicariously murderous read to get you
through this pandemic-challenged festive day? Here's a non-exhaustive
collection of recent crime novels that explore Western
Canada's culture, climate, & geography.
Starting from the West Coast, there's The Lost Ones by Sheena Kamal that follows Nora, a
traumatized transient & former foster child, as she searches for her
missing daughter from the drenched gray streets of Vancouver to the icy white mountains of the
BC interior. Or explore Vancouver’s fabulously
beautiful North Shore
in R.M.Greenaway’s ‘River of Lies’ (Dundurn Press) along with
three jaded RCMP officers as they investigate a baffling murder and a missing
toddler.
If your taste runs to hard-boiled investigations on
the gritty streets, tour the worst parts of Vancouver, BC
with A.J. Devlin. Former pro wrestler
"Hammerhead" Jed Ounstead encounters tent cities, wrestlers, roller
derby, and plenty of human detritus on both sides of the law. ‘Rolling Thunder’ (Newest Press) is the
series’ 2nd outing. Another wise-cracking Vancouver PI is 29-year old
Dave Wakeland. In “Invisible Dead"
by Sam Wiebe, Dave’s dogging the cold
trail of his hot ex... straight toward a showdown with a cabal of Vancouver’s most deadly
and powerful.
Far from the crowded streets of the Lower Mainland, Interior
towns may look idyllic, especially under a blanket of pristine Christmas snow.
But don't let the purity of all that white deceive you: every town has a dark
interior life, and none more than in Roz Nay’s
‘Hurry Home’ (Simon & Schuster).
Child protection officer Alexandra Van Ness is loving her life until her troublemaking
sister breezes back into town. Their shared past threatens to spill over into
the present, tangling Alexandra in long-buried terrors just when she most needs
her calm professionalism to save a child from imminent peril.
Another small town with a dark underbelly is historic
Nelson, BC in the Kootenay
Mountains, setting for Lucky Jack Road (Mosaic Press) by J.G. Toews. When Jack Ballard, an elite
mountain biker with a mile-wide mean streak, is found at the bottom of a ravine
with his mangled bike nearby, intrepid reporter Stella Musconi teams up
with RCMP Sergeant Ben McKean to determine whether it was unlucky chance that
ended his winning forever, or willful murder by someone even meaner than Jack.
Cranbrook author DaveButler’s ‘Full Curl’ (Dundurn Press) features Jenny
Willson, a caustic warden from Banff
National Park who
considers poachers and bureaucrats equally repulsive. If animal protection and
environmental conservation are on your Christmas list, you can’t go wrong with
this anti-poaching procedural by an author who worked the front lines against
poachers in Canada’s
best-known National Parks. On the Eastern Slopes of the Rocky Mountains there's
J.E. Barnard’s Why the Rock Falls (Dundurn), in which a
burnt-out RCMP officer and a disabled art historian team up to tackle the
wilderness disappearance of a Calgary oil baron and the inexplicable drowning
of a fading Hollywood starlet.
For a love song to the prairies’ people, places, and
history, visit ‘The Ancient Dead’
(Dundurn) by Barbara Fradkin. Set partly
amid the Drumheller hoodoos, the mystery starts with a dinosaur bone hunt and
delves into the dusty secrets of a prairie farming community that, over the
decades, have seeped deep into Calgary’s oil-company office towers. North of
almost everywhere in Alberta (but still only
mid-province) we come to The RedChesterfield, a genre-bending novel by Edmonton’s Wayne Arthurson. All I’ll say is
that spotting a red chesterfield in a ditch changes a bylaw officer’s life in
far more ways than you (or he) expect.
Eastward one more time, to Regina, Saskatchewan and Bone Black, a horror-glazed novel about a
Cree woman’s search for her missing sister, the dark paths she is pulled along,
and the devastating toll paid by all Indigenous families in the ongoing loss
and murder of their women and girls. Author CarolRose GoldenEagle is Cree Dene with roots in Sandy Bay, Saskatchewan.
To finish us off with a lighter note, visit any of the
Russel Quant novels by multi-Lambda nominee/winner and longtime Saskatoon resident Anthony Bidulka. Whether globe-trotting or
home on the snow-swept range, Russel solves crimes, wines/dines, and finds
romance, backed up by a cast of delightful secondary characters I came to love
as much as my own family.
Enjoy!
