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.
“Two dozen unexplained wreaths over the past year?”
When a mysterious undertaker is seen delivering floral funerary wreaths to families of the deceased BEFORE the death occurs, the WISE women spring into action in Ace’s latest cozy mystery. The police won’t touch it with a “bargepole” as the deaths aren’t suspicious. And yet, how can this undertaker know who’s going to die unless he’s been killing them? Meanwhile, using her nursing background, no-nonsense Mavis goes undercover to investigate some Suspicious Sisters, when it’s noted that narcotics belonging to recently deceased patients are disappearing in a certain hospital. A morbid aura shadows the idyllic village of Anwen-by-Wye, in the eighth installment of Ace’s WISE Enquiries series, and the bodies pile up.
By the way, WISE is an acronym for the origins of the four women who’ve teamed up to answer enquiries and solve these bizarre crimes: Carol from Wales, Christine from Ireland, Scottish Mavis, and English Annie. These bizarre crimes can only originate in the unrelenting mind of Cathy Ace. Averaging two books a year, the woman is unstoppable.
The jury’s still out on Ace’s view of the Welsh aristocracy. In this book, more than others, we see the colossal power held by Henry Twyst, the eighth Duke of Chellingworth, and his eccentric dowager mother, Althea. By the end of this book, they own it all, and though we applaud their generosity as patrons, the reader can’t help but notice the power imbalance. “At least we keep the village hall looking tidy. Which pleases both Their Graces,” quips one lowly villager. “Indeed, while “Their Graces” quibble over family issues, they continue to generate a rental income from the villagers and more from tours of Chellingworth Hall. Yet, Ace’s satirizing of the octogenarian dowager’s bizarre wardrobe choices, and her daughter Clementine’s plans to wed “at dawn on the summer solstice at the base of Queen Hatshepsut’s obelisk at the temple of Karnak” in Egypt, give us pause. Do I detect a mutinous murmur beneath a witty veneer?
A master of social satire, Ace presents this wry romp, slathered in details, and peppered with Welsh gems. Some favourites? The chief inspector “knew his onions when it came to his job” and “she’ll have my guts for garters.” Or this cringeworthy favourite: “Sugar was better than bile.” Annie’s “Gordon Bennett!” sent me running to Google. Ace’s dialects sparkle, her sensory descriptions wrap you in the best of the season, and her satirizing will make you smile.
Ace’s strength is in writing what she knows and doing so flawlessly. It’s clear she genuinely loves her characters and her birth country, as her prose oozes with colloquialisms. Ace emigrated from Swansea, Wales to British Columbia at age forty, and often visits home. A longtime fan of Nancy Drew and Agatha Christie, she comes naturally to the cozy murder mystery genre and is a storyteller extraordinaire. Her standalone novel, The Wrong Boy, and her Cait Morgan Mysteries have been optioned for TV by UK producers Free@LastTV. One can only hope, the WISE Enquiries follow in their wake.
Ace has been country-hopping this year, presenting at events like Gŵyl Crime Cymru (Wales’ first international crime literature festival), Calgary’s When Words Collide, and Boucheron (an annual world mystery convention). Catch her where you can and in the meantime, check out her two long-running cozy mystery series: The WISE Enquiries Agency Mysteries and Cait Morgan Mysteries.
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