Most Canadians will pick up Thomas King’s latest novel, check out the cover, and think the story involves a tragic accident on a lonely mountain highway caused by an invisible frozen glaze on pavement. Haven’t we all encountered black ice at some point on a Canadian road? But that explanation is way too simple for this King of Metaphors. Black Ice actually refers to a team of government agents whose mission was to collect corporate information but who raised the stakes by demanding scads of ill-gotten money and stashing it in a vault only one of them could access. But I get ahead of myself.
Black Ice is the eighth installment in The DreadfulWater Mysteries, a must-read satirical series set near a Blackfoot reserve in Chinook, Montana. The protagonist, Thumps DreadfulWater, is an ex-cop from Northern California—a ravenous, diabetic, Cherokee photographer who got in his car one fateful day and drove east until his fuel pump broke. His wife and daughter had been murdered, and Chinook “had simply been at the bottom of a long fall.” Due to his policing skills and a lack of trained detectives in Chinook, Thumps has been invited to assist the local law on several occasions. In Black Ice, the sheriff appoints Thumps temporary deputy sheriff when he’s forced to take a leave following his wife’s suicide. Of course, everywhere he goes, Thumps is referred to as that photographer.
King is a photographer himself. As Thumps struggles with modernity—leaving behind his basement dark room and all those killer chemicals to trudge into the digital age, I have to wonder if this is King’s personal experience. As deputy sheriff he has to carry a cell phone that makes him jump every time it vibrates.
Thumps plays straight man to an eccentric cast. The setup is reminiscent of King’s CBC radio show, The Dead Dog Café Comedy Hour (1997 to 2000.) Political satire and black humour define his style, and the Indigenous characters are fair game. Roxanne Heavy Runner is “dressed in a gunmetal-grey, shrapnel-patterned pantsuit. Her hair … held in place with a large metal clip that stuck up off the top of her head like the safety lever on a hand grenade” (129.) Her sister, Deanna Heavy Runner, and Cooley Small Elk, both do police work when they’re not playing Jenga at the station or watching the flat screen from the bed in the jail cell. The enterprising Wutty Youngbeaver surprises them all by entering the qualifying round of the U.S. Open supported by “Wutty’s Warriors” hooting him on from the sidelines in red T-shirts with gold lettering. Cisco Cruise “the ninja assassin” returns to “assist” Thumps in solving the death of a private investigator, and the disappearance of Nora Gage, the woman he’s been investigating. King says of this quirky cast: “They’re friends of mine and I don’t have a great many friends in the world. Those characters are pretty, pretty dear to me.” Fortunately for fans, he continues to create their lives.
King must be an animal lover as critters always make it into the story. Gage leaves a massive dog named Howdy at the pound when she bolts, and Thumps, in a shrewd move, rescues the beast and drops him off with the grieving sheriff—an outcome that seems to suit them both, more or less. Thumps doesn’t think Howdy will survive his cats. It’s doubtful whether the sheriff will survive Howdy.
King takes a jab at various contemporary trends from Amazon bashing to Moses Blood’s analogy on global warming: “too many gophers in the box.” His relationship with Claire suffers when she’s forced to take her daughter to Canada to access decent health care.
King can get away with this type of political commentary. A member of the Order of Canada, he’s won a string of prestigious awards for his work including: The Governor General’s Literary Award, a National Aboriginal Achievement Award, and a Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal. His book, Indians on Vacation, won the 2021 Stephen Leacock Award for Humour. Deep House, book Six in the DreadfulWater series, won the Crime Writers of Canada Whodunit Award for best traditional mystery in 2023. King wears the title, professor emeritus at the University of Guelph where he taught for many years. Oh, to have been in one of his English classes.
Really, if you’ve never read Thomas King, you must. Charmingly witty—wittingly charming, and laced with black ice that’ll keep you on your toes.
Joanna Vander Vlugt believes that all books should be works of art. She’s got a leg up there, being an artist-illustrator as well as a fine writer. Her sketch of protagonist, motorcycle-riding lawyer, Jade Thyme, blasts off the page carried by the energy of the craft.
Spy Girls, book three in the Jade and Sage Thriller series, is a rollicking and relentless legal thriller that answers the question: Can justice really prevail? The plot begins when millionaire Chief Justice Chimera—a revolting toad who sexually harasses and abuses young women who have the bad fortune to end up in his courtroom AND who is destined to become Canada’s next Prime Minister—is found murdered in his hot tub. Is this poetic justice? The work of a vigilante? The problem is: Sage Thyme’s girlfriend was the last person seen in the hot tub with Chimera, and now she’s missing, off her medication, and a person of interest along with Chimera’s wife, Anya, herself a pastry-chef and Russian ex-double-agent. Complicated? That’s not the half of it.
A high-voltage spy thriller, fueled by insidious twists, deceptive characters, and high-stakes action, Spy Girls is played out at intimate settings in Victoria, B.C. and the Downtown East Side in Vancouver.
Things I liked about this book: Slick dialogue and intimate details, like a box of gold-plated teeth from a murdered preacher, that show up here and there as clues. The play on names. A chimera is a devilish, mythological creature formed from parts of various animals; for example, a goat and serpent. Fitting? Indeed. Katriona Kalocsay, the snazzy, psychopathic, Hungarian villain who uses pliers to deal out her own brand of justice (teeth and nails. Yikes!) The formatting: the book comes complete with a Table of Contents divided into four parts. Each chapter highlights a cheeky quotation to rev up the reader and catchy chapter heads.
Vancouver Island writer, Joanna Vander Vlugt has a unique writing style and experiments with fresh ways to use basic literary terms. Gems like “my caterpillar confidence” and “an onion of nerves” catch the reader’s eye. She does something interesting with verbs, adding “ing” in surprising places—“Adam marched in, slamming him against the inside wall,” and “Adam shouted, dropping Jan to the floor”—that complements the action.
Though Spy Girls is the third instalment in the series, this novel can be read alone. There are enough mentions of backstory to piece together the intimate web that connects the characters, be they ex-CIA spies and their handlers; fathers and daughters; sisters, lovers, and friends. The first two novels, The Unravelling and Dealer’s Child, were Canadian Book Club Awards finalists. Joanna worked in the prosecutor’s office for thirteen years and spent another ten working in the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner, so has plenty of fodder for her novels. She is also a wonderful interviewer and editor of SAM Magazine. Her motorcycle illustrations have been purchased world-wide, and her Woman Empowered motorcycle art series has been featured in on-line art and motorcycle magazines.
Reading Spy Girls is like running a marathon. It will leave you breathless, yet satisfied.
If you’ve never read Jackie Elliott’s Coffin Cove cozy mysteries you’re in for a salty treat. Each story in this, currently four-book series, builds off the last and draws us deeper into the endangered and fearsome lives of Coffin Cove’s venturesome journalist/sleuth, Andi Silvers, along with her friends and neighbours. Imagine Murder, She Wrote liberally sprinkled with the grit and ferocity of The Shipping News, then nuanced with the history and atmosphere of Vancouver Island small town smack.
Elliott doesn’t shy away from shining a spotlight on political, social, and economic issues common to small provincial towns—especially those whose livelihoods were based on the forestry and fishing industries. We find fishers vs. loggers vs. environmental greenies, as well as rampant sexism, racism, and homophobia. When the tide turns and raw materials are depleted, a town must adapt or die— a sentiment Mayor Jade Thompson wears etched across her forehead. Jade beat out one of the oldest boys in the club to spirit Coffin Cove—a small town near Nanaimo—into the 21st Century, despite almost dying herself. Now, she’s turning the fish plant into a trendy tourist attraction and organizing an Indigenous cultural centre on offshore Hope Island—both gestures that have the locals pointing pitchforks.
The Vile Narrows refers to a treacherous stretch of sea bordering Quadra Island that hid Ripple Rock, “an underwater mountain with two peaks which caused dangerous eddies from the strong tidal currents that ran through Seymour Narrows” in Discovery Passage. On April 5, 1958 the government blew it to bits. Also on that day, Randolph Weber rescued a young boy—an act that comes back to haunt him decades later when, at the age of one hundred, he’s murdered in his home on Quadra Island. Soon after, his son, archaeologist Gerald Weber is murdered in Coffin Cove. Seeing an obvious connection, Andi Silvers sends a young reporter to Quadra to parse out the story for the Gazette. Meanwhile, a psychopath from earlier in the series resurfaces in Coffin Cove and Andi’s father, himself a journalist, disappears. The RCMP are hard into it as Elliott piles body on body with the precision of the most intimate executioner. Her murders are brutal and visceral. Why shoot someone when you can bash in their skull with a cast iron pot or stab them gleefully multiple times with a homemade knife?
Elliott’s strength lies in her ability to twist fact and fiction, past and present, into a pretzel of a tale. I’ve just read all four murder mysteries—though not in order—and had no problem following along, although I drew visual mind maps to connect the characters like Elliott’s detectives do. Each chapter introduces a character with a full-on backstory that situates the reader in the midst of their life, their trauma, and their agenda. Elliott’s writing is fluid, sensory, and descriptive, and she has an excellent ear for dialogue. Moreover, you will learn things, like the difference between a purse seiner and a packer, and what it’s like to live aboard a boat in January.
Elliott writes with all the earthy charm of Anne Cleeves—perhaps the blood of the gritty English murder mystery writer runs through her veins. It’s where she began. Since marrying a Canadian West Coast fisherman in 2004, she’s become enamored with the charm of Vancouver Island’s harbour towns. Book two in this series, Hell’s Half Acre, was shortlisted for the Crime Writers of Canada 2022 Whodunit award for best traditional mystery. Take a chance on this rivetting cozy mystery series that won’t disappoint. The nautical lover in each of us will enjoy exploring Coffin Cove.
If you’re a fan of British cozy mystery author Elly Griffiths, you’ll know that she’s been writing one Ruth Galloway archaeological mystery each year for over a decade. This is book fourteen. When the pandemic hit, she had to make a decision. Do I set this story in the current reality or not? It’s a decision many authors faced and will continue to face as we move through history. As no-nonsense as Ruth, Griffiths decided to not only to set it during the pandemic but to make it a kind of homage to plagues and isolation. I admit that I found bits triggering at times as I followed the characters through the horror and hassle of the opening weeks of the plague in Britain, February 2020.
Ten-year-old Kate is home, bored, doing school online. Nelson’s wife and young son are away looking after her mother. There are pandemic references: the evening clanging cheer to front-line workers, masking or not, grocery cues, empty shelves and the stocking of staples including toilet paper, lockdown laws, social distancing, two-metre walks out-of-doors, office staff on rotation and working from home, learning to Zoom, teaching from home, loved ones taken away to hospital and the grief of those quarantined and left behind who are not permitted to visit, references to plagues past, and the feeling of never being able to escape the fear and isolation it conjures.
Griffith’s strength is her ability to weave in these facts in a kind of matter-of-fact way, so they never overpower the mystery, which concerns healthy women who appear to be suddenly committing suicide. One woman is even found in her bedroom with the door locked from the outside.
Griffiths’ books are always gently packed with tidbits and meaningful symbols. The title signifies, not only the isolation of plagues in general, but how our “killer” operates, locking victims in total darkness. As is always the case, Nelson and Ruth end up tangled in dangerous climatic scenes of discovery.
Nelson, who’s living alone while his wife’s away, comes calling on Ruth until his grown daughter arrives home, needs her daddy, and he goes running off. That’s Nelson, protector of all and burly man of guilt. Ruth takes it all in her stride, even the discovery of her mother’s lifelong secret—a secret that will come to affect her present moment in a big way.
One thing that bothered me: I came away not understanding the killer’s motivation. He had the means and opportunity but the motive seemed lacking. Perhaps I missed something.
One thing I loved: the “Who’s Who” character pages at the end of the book. My favourite character is Cathbad and, true to form, the druid shaman embraces the pandemic by offering Zoom yoga classes every morning to his children and friends.
Don’t let the pandemic setting deter you. Just be aware that if you start fretting about going out in public, you’re likely triggered. We live in a different time now and this too shall pass.
If you’re unfamiliar with JP McLean’s award-winning supernatural crime novels, you should investigate her Dark Dreams series from the beginning. The first two books, Blood Mark and Ghost Mark, are narrated by a gnarly and lovable trio: Jane Walker, protagonist, dreamer, and bearer of magical marks; Jane’s boyfriend, Ethan Bryce, swaggering manager of the Riptide bar in Vancouver; and Jane’s loyal sidekick, former foster child, and high-class escort, Sadie Prescott. In Scorch Mark, the narration expands to include Sadie’s love interest, undercover Vancouver cop Dylan O’Brien.
In Blood Mark, we learn that the scarlet marks snaking around Jane’s body were gifted to her in an ancient Incan ritual to protect her from death. Now, McLean reveals that anyone who tries to kill Jane will end up dead themselves, and this threat has been proven true. Jane also suffers from lucid dreams in which she appears as a shadowy figure whose actions can affect history. In Ghost Mark, the blood marks transform, and she appears in her dreams dressed in whatever she wore when she fell asleep. Since she’s visible, you can imagine the problems this presents. Jane also discovers a vivid white “escape valve” on the back of her hand that rewinds a dream if she turns it counterclockwise and jumps her out of the dream if she moves it clockwise. The spectral marks remain in Scorch Mark, but in a clever stake-raising move, McLean introduces a villainous group of cowboy thugs who intend to use the marks for their own evil purposes. She also reveals much more about the old Peruvian families, the old silver offering bowl, and the Incan ritual itself.
McLean deftly intertwines three plots in Scorch Mark. In one, the psychologist who abducted Jane in Blood Mark goes on trial, and we await the verdict with bated breath. Will the defence attorneys create enough reasonable doubt for the jury to allow him and his accomplice to go free? And how will the attorneys twist Jane’s story? As is typical of courtroom drama, it’s a fist-squeezing, jaw-grinding experience for the reader. Meanwhile, Detective Dylan O’Brien is investigating “ghost guns” — a shipment of illegal firearms that have been produced using a three-D printer, and Jane is dreaming about the evil producers. Interspersed are Jane’s dangerous dreams, where she must act as a witness without being caught by the villains who are changing history. Tension anyone?
Wickedly clever, original, suspenseful, and action-packed, McLean’s impeccable writing and razor-sharp plotting will draw you in and keep you riveted. Scorch Mark is glamour and grit, spliced with a magical sense of the macabre, and wildly Canadian. Detailed, descriptive scenes of the Vancouver Law Courts will have you sitting tensely beside Jane as she watches her attacker from the gallery through thick, bulletproof glass. Then it’s a race across the country to a 12,000-acre Alberta ranch and a massive criminal takedown.
JP McLean is a bestselling author of urban fantasy and supernatural thrillers. She’s been the recipient of numerous honours for the Dark Dreams series and her six-book Gift Legacy series. Among them are a Global Book Award, CIBA and Page Turner Award, the National Indie Excellence Awards, the UK Wishing Shelf Book Awards, and the Whistler independent Book Awards.
