Double trouble
The Cost of a Hostage
by Iona Whishaw
Victoria: Touchwood Editions, 2025
$21.95 / 9781771514545
Reviewed by Bill Paul
*
Before beginning a Lane Winslow historical mystery written by Vancouver author Iona Whishaw, the unsuspecting reader needs to know a few details. The stories take place during the late 1940s. The setting is the fictional community of King’s Cove in the British Columbia interior, situated near the towns of Nelson and Creston. Lane is a smart, experienced, and worldly woman, a character loosely based on Whishaw’s mother, who worked for the British intelligence during the Second World War.
Several years back, Lane married Frederick Darling, an honest and forthright man, who also served during the Second World War and now is working as the Chief of Police for the Nelson Police Station. The two are deeply in love and both have had success in the past catching criminals and spies. In Whishaw’s twelfth novel of the series, The Cost of a Hostage, the author has written another well-constructed cozy crime-mystery involving two storylines.
Story number one begins in King’s Cove on a quiet summer morning in August, 1948. A woman named Linda, mother to a young boy, rushes into the Nelson Police Station and declares that her son has inexplicably gone missing. Later that same day the phone rings at Lane’s home and Lane is startled by the news that her husbands’s brother, Bob, a geologist, has gone missing while working for an American mining company in Mexico. Two random kidnappings in a matter of a few hours. What the heck is going on?
In the first missing person case, Rocky Radcliff, a five-year old boy still wearing his pyjamas, has been taken from his home in the middle of the night. The police are baffled. The boy’s mother is a feisty character with a history of relationships that have turned sour. The case is assigned to Constable Terrell, Sergeant Ames, and April McAvity, from the Nelson Police Station. During the investigation, all manner of false leads, fake identities, and dead ends help move the story along.
For example, the police find a ladder that may have been used in the abduction of the boy. A white van and later a stolen blue Chevy are discovered on the side of the road. A child’s slipper turns up in the abandoned white van. And finally, a man’s body is found trapped in the paddlewheel of the Moyie (a passenger sternwheeler) while crossing Kootenay Lake. The dead man is known to the local police and the RCMP. Was he in some way connected to the disappearance of the boy?
In the book’s second story line, Lane and her husband travel to Mexico to investigate the disappearance of Frederick’s younger brother. The two have spoken on the phone with a British embassy official, a man named Captain Herridge (the “archetype of the British military man”). Herridge has told the couple that Frederick’s brother may have been kidnapped, possibly fallen into the “wrong hands.” Another bureaucrat from the embassy, Thomas Fine, tells the couple that it’s a “needle-in the-haystack situation out there.”
Ignoring advice from both Herridge and Fine, the couple travel to Mexico City and then go on horseback to Fresnillo, a small town in northern Mexico. From there they make contact with a group of bandidos led by an enigmatic man named Salinas. What Lane doesn’t know is that the British embassy suspects her of some wrongdoing related to her past work for British intelligence. In the world of crime-mystery stories everybody has a secret. Could it be that the good guys really are the bad guys in this case?
Historical mysteries are hugely popular these days and many of the stories are anchored by strong women characters. The bestselling Lane Winslow mystery series is no exception. Whishaw writes with a modern, feminist sensibility. Both Lane and April are known for their independence and quick thinking. Despite facing skepticism about their policing abilities, the two women push back against the establishment and authority figures who believe that “girls had no business taking work that should rightly go to men.”
With two separate plots going on at the same time, the narrative in The Cost of a Hostage does tend to wander at times. Overall, the mood and the tone of the story is lighthearted and can be summed up by a conversation that Lane and Frederick have near the end of the book, after they’ve returned from Mexico and made their way back to the safety of their home in King’s Cove. Lane is asked by her husband Frederick why she wants to throw a party. Her reply: “To celebrate the goodness of people.”
*
East Vancouverite Bill Paul enjoys photography and reading fiction and nonfiction. [Editor’s note: Bill has reviewed books by Stephen Osborne, Corinna Chong, Gurjinder Basran, Caroline Adderson, William Deverell, Deryn Collier, Jann Everard, Jack Lowe-Carbell, Martin West, Dietrich Kalteis, Suzannah Showler, Curtis LeBlanc, Patrick deWitt, Barbara Fradkin, Dietrich Kalteis, Stan Rogal, Keath Fraser, and John Farrow for BCR, and contributed a photo-essay, “Trevor Martin’s Vancouver.”]
*
The British Columbia Review
Interim Editors, 2023-26: Trevor Marc Hughes (non-fiction), Brett Josef Grubisic (fiction and poetry)
Publisher: Richard Mackie
Formerly The Ormsby Review, The British Columbia Review is an online book review and journal service for BC writers and readers. The Advisory Board now consists of Jean Barman, Wade Davis, Robin Fisher, Barry Gough, Hugh Johnston, Kathy Mezei, Patricia Roy, and Graeme Wynn. Provincial Government Patron (since September 2018): Creative BC. Honorary Patron: Yosef Wosk. Scholarly Patron: SFU Graduate Liberal Studies. The British Columbia Review was founded in 2016 by Richard Mackie and Alan Twigg.
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