NO TIME FOR GOODBYE
By Linwood Barclay, Bantam,
338 pages, $28
No Time for Goodbye opens with a powerful prologue. Cynthia Bigge, adored daughter and teen rebel, awakens from a drunken stupor. She anticipates a confrontation with Mom and Dad. But when Cynthia gets downstairs, there are no irate parents, no disapproving older brother. Everything is neat, tidy and empty.
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Okay, Cynthia thinks. It's the silent treatment. She goes off to school, but six hours of hung-over non-study later, the house is still empty. By evening, it dawns: Something has happened to her family. Cynthia Bigge, smarty-pants teenager, is now alone in the world.
If you're used to Linwood Barclay's sweet comic mysteries featuring journalist and science-fiction author Zack Walker, you will be surprised by this stand-alone thriller of a family besieged by the past and a present that is fragile and full of fears.
Shift to 25 years later, in the same Connecticut town. Cynthia has never left. She has married schoolteacher Sam Archer, has a child and lives a quiet and seemingly successful life. But the tragedy of that day in 1983 has never left her.
A national TV show wants a "reality" story on the anniversary of the mystery: Cynthia's recollections, revisiting her old home. Her husband and friends aren't convinced, but the police have written off the case, so Cynthia goes through with it and, unwittingly, opens the door to new horrors.
Not all of this comes together. Barclay's forte is his solid characters. Everyone, particularly Cynthia, is so well-crafted we can overlook Sam Archer's occasional drift into the patter of Zack Walker. There's also a subplot that doesn't work, and a mercifully brief trip into the occult. These all slow the real plot, when a body drops and it's clear that Cynthia's family story isn't over.
There are some obvious and egregious errors. Sam uncovers "new" information that any two-bit police investigation would have found in 10 minutes, and it takes a coincidence or two to make the plot work out. Thus, this novel isn't as good as it could be or should be, but has enough fine writing to prove that Barclay should spend more time in this world than in the sunny suburbia of the Walker clan.
FEAR OF LANDING
By David Waltner-Toews, Poison Pen, 221 pages, $29.95
David Waltner-Toews is a genuine polymath. He's a published poet, author of books on subjects as diverse as Mennonite history and exotic animal-to-human diseases. He's a professor of population medicine at the University of Guelph, an epidemiologist, a founder of Veterinarians Without Borders and the Network for Ecosystem Sustainability and Health. In his free time, he's written his first mystery novel, and it's terrific.
Lots of specialists of one sort or another attempt crime novels, and usually they're pretty awful. But Waltner-Toews does exactly the right thing. He sticks to what he knows, puts together a credible and intriguing plot, chooses an exotic setting and tells his story. The opening line - "There is something warm and comforting about doing an autopsy on a cow" - is guaranteed to set the reader up for something just a little different. And that's exactly what follows.
We're back in the 1980s, when the Western world didn't see Indonesia as part of the Islamist threat, and the United States couldn't pour money into Suharto's police state fast enough.
Abner Dueck, a Canadian veterinarian, is in Indonesia with the Mennonite Central Committee, researching animal diseases. It is a time to be very, very careful. When cows start dying, it's Ab's job to find out why. You might not think this act could be construed as part of a plot against the state, but as the story moves on, and animals higher on the food chain begin to die, it's clear to Ab that he's stumbled into a case of political murder.
As a poet, Waltner-Toews has a lovely ear for language and description. As a vet, he takes us into the centre of a cow's carcass, and his grasp of politics and recent Indonesian history is clear and readable. What he needs is a bit of polish - this novel is the first of a projected trilogy - and more attention to character.
This is a short book, but Abner is a bit absent at times, and other characters, including his mysterious Chinese girlfriend, are too thin for today's readers. That said, this is still a very fine debut.
RUBY TUESDAY
By Mike Harrison, ECW,
272 pages, $28.95
I am no fan of the sweet science, but if anyone can interest me in boxing, it's Mike Harrison in this excellent new Eddie Dancer mystery.
Eddie is deep in a crossword puzzle when Valerie Miller comes in to hire him. Her husband, Paul, is having a seriously bad year. First, he lost his job with a Calgary advertising firm. Then, when he went to draw out money from his ATM, he saw a man beating a woman. Paul intervened, and the wife-beater, a toughie named Victor Shriver, beat him to a pulp and put him in hospital.
Trouble is, the fight was caught by the bank's surveillance camera, and from that angle, Paul is the aggressor. Despite his injuries, the police filed charges. Then Shriver, smelling a quick buck, sets out to sue Paul for $50,000.
The combination of police charges, lost wages and a lawsuit are more than enough to finish off the Miller family finances. Somehow, Paul gets the bright idea of challenging Shriver to a boxing match. Three rounds, winner take all.
Valerie loves her husband, and she knows that he's too old, too slow and far too out of shape to win this fight. She also knows that it's possible he'll die trying. She wants Eddie to stop the fight. How? That's Dancer's problem. She's only afraid he'll be too late.
As always, Harrison has a good ear for dialogue and a good eye for the telling detail. This is a good, slick story with engaging characters and lots of brio.
FOUL DEEDS
By Linda Moore, Vagrant Press, 240 pages, $16.95
Another first novel, this time from Halifax. Linda Moore is a theatre director who's worked at most of Canada's major venues, from Stratford to Vancouver and back to Halifax. As you might expect, her first mystery has a theatrical setting, and since actors are great victims (as well as villains), it's an amusing romp.
Rosalind and McBride (single names only) are, respectively, a criminologist and a private eye. Both are satisfactorily eccentric. Ros's favourite hobby is acting in local theatrical companies, and she's about to appear in Hamlet. Then McBride ends up nearly frozen in the yard; an environmental lawyer is dead, maybe murdered, and odd bits of Shakespeare's dialogue start ominously predicting or describing real events.
This is an amusing story with lots of asides and funny bits of theatrical lore - and a decent whodunit.
EXIT STRATEGY
By Kelley Armstrong, Seal Books, 480 pages, $10.99
I almost missed this excellent mystery because I'm familiar with Kelley Armstrong's series of werewolf books, and I thought this was one. Luckily, I read the cover, because this is a completely different - and much better - book that appears to begin a series.
Nadia Stafford is a very smart, very capable young woman who runs a nature lodge in rural Ontario. The lodge is a nice place to live and work, but it's not a money-maker in the off-season, so Nadia has to fall back on her second career: hit woman for a Mafia family.
How does a nature lover know how to clip a mark? She learned during her years as a cop. She also learned how justice is often subverted and criminals go free. So, Nadia doesn't kill just anyone. She has a conscience, and if the mark doesn't deserve to die, no amount of money will purchase her services.
But when a serial killer starts murdering people up and down the country, Nadia finds herself in a strange position. The FBI is searching for someone who's bringing death to hit men everywhere, so a gal's gotta do what a gal's gotta do.
This one is a real hoot, and I hope Nadia returns soon.
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