Kay Stewart & Chris Bullock. A Deadly Little List (2006)

     Kay Stewart & Chris Bullock. A Deadly Little List (2006) Stewart and Bullock have concocted a nice little mystery, set on Saltspring Island. It’s not as edgy as one might like, with a few plotting troubles. There are two investigators, an RCMP constable and a theatre critic. Two murders and a near-third provide the gore and the plot motivation. They are of course tied together. The little list is the famous one from The Mikado, which figures as the social setting of the mystery. The producer/director of the play (an unpleasant character, obsessed with his vision of himself as a ground-breaking dramatic innovator) has rewritten it with local references, a common enough ploy. But his hints cut a little too close to the criminal truth, and one of his targets murders him. The first murder was an accident: the victim came across the drug-smuggling operation that the murderer was trying to hide.
      The police procedure is handled competently, but clearly at second hand, and drawn out as it is in real life, which tends to slow down the story, especially since every chapter is headed with a place, date and time. The clues and red herrings are fairly placed. The characterisation of the main character, Danutia Dranchuk, is a little formulaic, and whenever it gets close to her inner self, the narrators dance away. A similar skittishness shows up with Arthur Fairweather, the critic. Both these characters’ back stories influence their approach to the puzzle, but we’re given no more than a hint or two. The Saltspring setting is occasionally laboriously done, with careful enumeration of landmarks and businesses. But usually the evocation of the mood is pleasant and has the ring of truth.
     The story starts out blandly and slowly, despite the authors’ use of short chapters, each of which builds to a mild forward-pointing climax. Around the middle of the book, I was engaged enough to want to find out how it all turned out, as well as to see whether various hints about personal relationships would morph into full-blown if incomplete plots. But Stewart and Bullock apparently seem to want their story to be realistic in the mundane sense that most attraction, even if mutual, doesn’t develop into anything, usually not even into a first coffee or drink. Murder mysteries are a type of romance, so unrealistically quick development of attraction into emotional affairs if not physical ones is required. All in all, a pleasant, low-key entertainment. The last sentence points to further adventures of Constable Dranchuk, but whether we’ll see them or not depends I suppose on how well this book sells. ** (2008)

Alice Munro. Runaway (2004)

     Alice Munro. Runaway (2004) I find Munro difficult to read, not because she is a difficult writer, but because she engages the reader’s emotions so strongly. In most of her stories the protagonist ends up more or less resigned to her fate, a fate that she doesn’t deserve. There is a ruthlessness and implacability in Munro’s view of the world, in her awareness of the small shifts in circumstance that would have led to a happier outcome, her insight that the most significant choices are often made while hardly aware that one is making a choice, her cool presentation of those data about character that reveal self-delusion and moral cowardice. She shows us how small misunderstandings, need for love and acceptance, lack of confidence, and innocent ignorance of self and others, lead inexorably to disappointment. Not that her characters are morally perfect and pure: but their flaws are minor, the kind that in other writers lead to pathos rather than tragedy, to peace rather than resignation, to acceptance rather than endurance. Her stories draw me in, and leave me feeling sad. *** to **** (2008)

Howard Engel. The Cooperman Variations (2001)

 

    Howard Engel. The Cooperman Variations (2001) An old schoolfriend, now Head of Entertainment at NTC, hires Benny to be her bodyguard, as it seems someone has shot her friend by mistake. Cooperman makes friends with the Toronto police (he’s unusual in being a PI who likes and works with the police), beds his employer (for whom he had lusted in high school), and from time to time remembers Anna, who is gallivanting around Europe. The solution is of course a twist, for this is a mystery novel. Engel has mastered his genre and formula, and this is one of the better Coopermans. NTC is a thinly disguised Global TV, but I can’t tell which characters are Engel’s takes on their employees, and which are pure invention (if characters can ever be said to be pure invention). *** (2008)

W. J. Burley. Wycliffe and the Quiet Virgin (1986)

     W. J. Burley. Wycliffe and the Quiet Virgin (1986) The virgin in question is a schoolgirl who impresses with her portrayal of Mary in a Christmas pageant. Then she disappears. As Wycliffe is visiting in the neighbourhood, he gets the search in motion. Shortly afterwards the girl’s mother is found murdered. The usual long-buried family secrets prove to be the keys to the crimes, which Wycliffe solves with his usual combination of donkey work and intuition. Well done entertainment, but the TV series was IMO more effective. **½ (2008)

Howard Engel. A Victim Must be Found (1988)

     Howard Engel. A Victim Must be Found (1988) Pambos Kiriakis hires Cooperman to find a list of paintings loaned by a dead art dealer who was sloppy with his paperwork. In fact, Pambos wants Cooperman to sniff out theft and a possible murder, an aim that costs Pambos his life. One of the possible thieves (according to Pambos) hires Cooperman to finish the investigation, and Benny not only finds out the list was bogus, he ties it all up neatly for Chris Savas, his friend on the Niagara Regional Police force. He also meets Anne Abraham. **½. (2008)

Howard Engel. The Ransom Game (1981)

     Howard Engel. The Ransom Game (1981) In a bleak February, Benny Cooperman gets the job of finding a disappeared ex-con who knows where the $500K ransom money is stashed. A week and two corpses later, Cooperman has solved the case, which involves a few nasties in high places, ancient double crosses, and a dysfunctional family. As usual, Engel is good on Cooperman, less so on the other characters. His mild send-up of tough PI talk continues to amuse, but the puzzle is less than satisfactory; the final solution has not been fully clued, although the real villain has been signalled quite early on. Benny’s romance with Anne is proceeding, albeit slowly A good entertainment nevertheless. **½ (2008)

Colin Dexter. The Riddle of the Third Mile (1983)

    Colin Dexter. The Riddle of the Third Mile (1983) Another over-elaborate crime. There are five corpses, three murdered, one a suicide, and one dead of natural causes. The mess includes mistakes about past events, excessive ambition, academic feuds, a Soho nightclub, erotica, conspiracy to commit murder, University examinations, red herrings strewn about by the conspirators,  and  the usual bit players. Dexter’s trademark characterisation-by-tic is front and centre here, as is his schtick of anticipating events. “Little did he know...” that this would begin to wear down my patience. I mentally rewrote a couple of the short chapters omitting those foreshadowings, and felt a bit better.
     Still, by giving us the unriddling via Morse’s and Lewis’s peregrinations, false starts, discovery of small details, and sudden shifts of view, Dexter compels us to read on. The solution is, as already mentioned, too complicated by half. That the perpetrators won’t be brought to justice because they’re all dead is just another twist in an overly twisted tale. **