Mindful of Murder by Susan Juby Toronto: HarperCollins Canada, 2022 $24.99 / 9781443464437 Reviewed by Carol Matthews * There’s no time wasted getting to the murder scene in Susan Juby’s new mystery. The Prologue to Mindful of Murder gives a brief introduction to the victim, Edna Rodd, and by the fifth page we’ve watched her…
Read more 1458 Death at the Yatra Institute
Death at the Savoy: A Priscilla Tempest Mystery by Ron Base and Prudence Emery Madeira Park: Douglas & McIntyre, 2022 $18.95 / 9781771623216 Reviewed by Ginny Ratsoy * Star-struck readers will likely savour Death at the Savoy. Tony Bennett, Louis Armstrong and Claude Monet are name-dropped, Luciano Pavarotti and Bob Hope put in brief appearances,…
Read more 1451 Intrigue at the Savoy Hotel
Noonday Dark: Doctor Annick Boudreau Mystery No. 2 by Charles Demers Madeira Park: Douglas & McIntyre, 2022 $18.95 / 9781771623285 Reviewed by Carol Matthews * Charles Demers’ new mystery, Noon Day Dark, checks off all the boxes for what I think a successful mystery should include: a strong hook, an engaging sleuth, an atmospheric setting,…
Read more 1446 Annick and the red herrings
Deadly Neighbours: Colonialism, Cattle Feuds, Murder and Vigilantes in a Far West Valley by Chad Reimer Qualicum Beach: Caitlin Press, 2022 $26.00 / 9781773860732 Reviewed by Ron Verzuh * White settler injustice: racial tensions fuelled by two sets of laws, one white and the other First Nations I’m a sucker for old dusters. The westerns…
Read more 1421 A border outrage, 1884
The Almost Wife by Gail Anderson-Dargatz Toronto: HarperCollins Canada, 2021 $24.99 / 9781443458429 Reviewed by Myshara Herbert-McMyn * A person’s entire life can change in a day. But how it changes? Who it changes? Accepting that change? No one will see it coming. The Almost Wife is a masterpiece of suspense, written through the themes…
Read more 1403 A perilous island sanctuary
The Grey Zone: A Jack Taggart Mystery by Don Easton Toronto: Dundurn Press, 2019 $11.99 / 9781459745308 Reviewed by Jolie Won-Hyang Cho and Corrie Shoemaker * The Grey Zone is a compelling police mystery written by former RCMP officer Don Easton. With twenty years of experience working undercover, including seven years with the RCMP Intelligence…
Read more 1391 Under different aliases
Hell and Gone: A Wakeland Novel by Sam Wiebe Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2021 $24.95 / 9781550179637 Reviewed by Alma Lee * Dave Wakeland and his partner Jeff Chen run a private investigation agency out of Chinatown in the heart of Vancouver. They are in the midst of expanding, and while Jeff is working at…
Read more 1386 Vancouver’s Ian Rankin
Dark Roads by Chevy Stevens New York: Macmillan (St. Martin’s Press), 2021. Distributed in Canada by Raincoast Books $23.95 / 9781250133595 Reviewed by Zoe McKenna Spoiler warning: this review reveals important details of plot development — Ed. * New York Times Bestselling author Chevy Stevens returns after a four-year hiatus with her chilling seventh novel,…
Read more 1384 Terror at Cold Creek
Elderville by Roy Innes Pensacola, Florida: World Castle Publishing, 2022 $9.99 U.S. / 9781956788303 Reviewed by Phyllis Reeve * Roy Innes used to be an eye surgeon. After 30 plus years of Big City private and academic practice, he retired to Gabriola Island from Vancouver and became a writer of thrillers. From 2005 to 2016…
Read more 1381 A terminal drive on Interstate 5
The Royals Next Door by Karina Halle Toronto: Penguin Random House Canada (Berkley), 2021 $22.00 / 9780593334195 Reviewed by Miranda Marini * Set on Salt Spring Island, “a small yet eccentric haven between Vancouver Island and the mainland [of British Columbia]” (p. 5), Karina Halle’s The Royals Next Door begins with the unpleasant image of…
Read more 1336 Salt Spring shack and mansion
All Is Well by Katherine Walker Saskatoon: Thistledown Press, 2021 $24.95 / 9781771872157 Reviewed by Heather Graham * Christine Wright, the protagonist of Katherine Walker’s novel All Is Well, is a recently ordained priest in the Anglican Church of Canada with fifteen years of military service to her credit, some of it in Special Forces….
Read more 1331 Reverend Wright & the wrongdoers
This Eden by Ed O’Loughlin Toronto: House of Anansi, 2021 $24.95 / 9781487005696 Reviewed by Zoe McKenna * As Ed O’Loughlin’s fourth novel, This Eden, closes, the still-unnamed narrator declares, “I like not knowing what’s going to happen next.” As becomes apparent within the first pages of the novel, an affection for the unknown and…
Read more 1324 A pencil & sticky note thriller
Velvet Was the Night by Silvia Moreno-Garcia Toronto: Penguin Random House Canada (Del Ray Books), 2021 $37.00 / 9780593356821 Reviewed by Myshara Herbert-McMyn * One of the reasons humans are drawn to fiction is because we want desperately to know what it’s like to live a life that isn’t our own. We live vicariously through the…
Read more 1321 The fantasies of El Elvis & Maite
Murders on the Skeena: True Crime in the Old Canadian West, 1884-1914 by Geoff Mynett Qualicum Beach: Caitlin Press, 2021 $24.95 / 9781773860671 Reviewed by Ron Verzuh * Not a Hollywood murder: move aside Deadwood and make room for BC’s wild north When people exist on the extreme edges of a place, unexpected yet sometimes…
Read more 1316 Colonial law vs Gitxsan tradition
Stung by William Deverell Toronto: ECW Press, 2021 $32.95 / 9781770415959 Reviewed by Alma Lee * A new book by William Deverell is always something to look forward to. One only needs to read the back cover blurbs of Stung to know it’s going to be a page-turner. The list of people who have given…
Read more 1293 The good cop of Garibaldi Island
The Day She Died by S.M Freedman Toronto: Dundurn Press, 2021 $18.99 / 9781459747401 Reviewed by Myshara Herbert-McMyn * The Day She Died tells Eve’s story through the broken pieces of her life as she attempts to rebuild after a terrible head injury. The story weaves through amnesia, a strange marriage, and a terrible shift…
Read more 1290 It pays to pay attention
The French Baker’s War by Michael Whatling Vancouver: Mortal Coil Books, 2021 $21.99 / 9781777569921 Please order from your local independent bookstore. Also available in Canada through Amazon, Chapters-Indigo, KOBO, Smashwords, Ingram, LSC, Apple, Google, etc. Reviewed by Valerie Green * Michael Whatling has written a deeply moving Second World War story in The French…
Read more 1272 Pâtisserie to page-turner
Five Ways to Disappear by R.M. Greenaway (Book 6 in the BC Blues Crime Series) Toronto: Dundurn Press, 2021 $19.99 / 9781459741560 Reviewed by Ginny Ratsoy * As one predisposed to mysteries on the cosy end of the genre spectrum (particularly during a seemingly interminable plague) I shrunk from the first chapter of this police…
Read more 1261 BC blues plague reading
One London Day by C.C. Humphreys Two Hats Creative, 2021 $20.00 / 9781989988046 For paperback see here; for ebook see here; for audiobook (read by the author) see here. Reviewed by Alma Lee * Chris Humphreys writes and lives on Salt Spring Island. An actor, playwright, and novelist, he has published 20 books — historical…
Read more 1226 Severin and the Russian escort
Lucky Jack Road: A Stella Mosconi Mystery by J.G. Toews Oakville, ON: Mosaic Press, 2020 $19.99 / 9781771615082 Reviewed by Ginny Ratsoy * This, the second in the Stella Mosconi Mystery series, invites delving into mystery subgenres. Lucky Jack Road has the hallmarks of a cozy mystery: the amateur detective, typically female, practises her sleuthing…
Read more 1182 Death on Elephant Mountain