Nobody from Somewhere by Dietrich Kalteis Toronto: ECW Press, 2022 $24.95 / 9781770416116 Reviewed by Bill Paul * The plot of this entertaining crime novel begins at a bar in a casino near the Vancouver airport. Park Won-Soon, a Korean businessman fluent in three languages and working out of Hong Kong, is having a drink…
Read more 1682 Show me the money
Hemingway’s Widow: The Life and Legacy of Mary Welsh Hemingway by Timothy Christian Toronto: Dundurn Press, 2022 $42.95 / 9781459750548 Reviewed by Peter Hay * Few books survive to become classics; their fame is most oft interred with the authors’ bones. Even fewer writers lead interesting enough lives to create a whole industry of biographies,…
Read more 1679 Mary Welsh’s inheritance
A Bicycle Story by Dave Steen Thetis Island: Thetis Island Publishing, 2022 $12.99 / 9798409188085 A Bicycle Story is available on Amazon.ca Reviewed by Howard Macdonald Stewart * Dave Steen’s mystery novel about old crimes and old age might well have been entitled A Tale of Many Bicycles or A Tale of Many Cyclists. All…
Read more 1677 The rough side of cycling
Try Not to Be Strange: The Curious History of the Kingdom of Redonda by Michael Hingston Windsor, ON: Biblioasis, 2022 $24.95 / 9781771964159 Reviewed by Michael Hayward * 1100 km beyond Haiti in the western Caribbean, west of the British Virgin Islands and just visible from the tiny island of Monserrat, lies an even smaller, uninhabited…
Read more 1674 A literary kingdom
Sulfur Heart by Brooke Carter Victoria: Orca Book Publishers, 2022 $10.95 / 9781459831605 Reviewed by Myshara Herbert-McMyn * Sulfur Heart is a wonderfully dark and gritty story with all the elements readers crave in a noir novel: crime, murder, tragedy, whodunnit, revenge. It took me less than ninety minutes to read, and it will no…
Read more 1672 A noir novel for teens
We Have Never Lived On Earth by Kasia Van Schaik Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 2022 (Robert Kroetsch Series) $24.99 / 9781772126280 Reviewed by Carol Matthews * In response to a CBC question about the inspiration for her short story “An Ounce of Care,” which was shortlisted for the CBC Short Story Prize in 2017,…
Read more 1659 Into the hoard of life
Darkness at the Edge of Town by Stan Rogal Montreal: Guernica Editions, 2022 $20.00 / 9781771836975 Reviewed by Bill Paul * Taking place in the town of Weyburn, Saskatchewan, Stan Rogal’s Darkness at the Edge of Town follows the psycho-sexual odyssey of young man in his late twenties, a misfit and hell-raiser named Ray. The…
Read more 1657 Unresolved in Weyburn
Keepers of the Garden by A.S. (Lana) Rodlie Independently published, 2018 Price on Amazon, $22.93 / 9781730700200 To obtain a copy of the book, contact lana_rodlie@telus.net or write to 367 McAnally Street, Trail, BC V1R 3R3 (phone 250 368-9227) Reviewed by Vanessa Winn * Viewing the past from the perspective of lesser-known historical figures is…
Read more 1655 Assignment on the Pacific
Between a Rock and a Hard Place: A Dutch Policeman Fighting the Nazi Occupation by Johanna Van Zanten Las Vegas: Histria Books (Addison & Highsmith Publishers), 2021 $29.99 / 9781592111022 Reviewed by Valerie Green * I always enjoy books set in World War Two, especially those that tell stories of lesser known aspects of the…
Read more 1651 A family divided
The Descendants by Robert Chursinoff Gibsons: Nightwood Editions, 2022 $24.95 / 9780889714403 Reviewed by W.H. New * I very much enjoyed reading Robert Chursinoff’s first novel, The Descendants. I think it’s a remarkable achievement, one that deserves a wide range of readers, both for the appeal of the story it tells and for the importance…
Read more 1650 Doukhobor affirmations
The Lost Century by Larissa Lai Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2022 $24.95 / 9781551528977 Reviewed by Hanako Masutani * “Don’t you read your history books!” Violet Mah, a retired medical doctor and part-time narrator of The Lost Century, berates her niece, a proxy for the reader. Larissa Lai’s latest novel opens in a hole-in-the-wall restaurant…
Read more 1637 Time regained
The Knot Wound Round Your Finger: An Anthology of Memory, History, & Inheritance by Devon Field (editor) Vancouver: Bell Press Books, 2021 $20.00 / 9780994812728 Reviewed by Theo Dombrowski * In a short story called “Lethe’s Share,” author Carsten Schmitt writes, “It’s our memories who make us who we are. “ Most of us would…
Read more 1635 Depending on memory
You Are Here: Selected Stories by Cynthia Flood, with an introduction by Rebecca Rosenblum Windsor, ON: Biblioasis, 2022 $26.95 / 9781771963411 Reviewed by Ginny Ratsoy * Emma Donoghue has observed, “The great thing about a short story is that it doesn’t have to trawl through someone’s whole life; it can come in glancingly from the side.”…
Read more 1634 Shades of empire and activism
Dear Peter, Dear Ulla by Barbara Nickel Saskatoon: Thistledown Press, 2021 $16.95 / 9781771872232 Reviewed by Alison Acheson * Barbara Nickel’s Dear Peter, Dear Ulla is a gift. While written for tweens to young teens, many adult readers would enjoy it too. The full cast of characters of all ages are well-developed for their roles,…
Read more 1632 Expecting full envelopes
The Little Brudders of Miséricorde by David M. Wallace New Westminster: Tidewater Press, 2022 $21.95 / 9781990160080 Reviewed by Zoe McKenna * In the final months of 2022, the initial COVID-19 lockdowns of 2020 have transitioned from reality into memory. While that era of the pandemic fades away, what remains is the widespread experience of…
Read more 1631 Small mammal wisdom
The Tattoo Widow by Becky Parisotto Victoria: FriesenPress, 2021 $21.99 / 9781039112308 Reviewed by Myshara Herbert-McMyn * The Tattoo Widow by Becky Parisotto captures the beautiful and enrapturing journey of Annalise as she grieves for the loss of her husband, a tattoo artist named Dylan. The nature of Annalise and Dylan’s relationship is shown before…
Read more 1630 Riding a complex grief
If I Tell You the Truth by Jasmin Kaur Toronto: HarperCollins Canada, 2021 $21.99 / 9780062912640 Reviewed by Hanako Masutani * Jasmin Kaur’s If I Tell You the Truth begins with a list of eight trigger warnings. I opened the book, read the list, and considered putting the book back down. Yet while Truth deals…
Read more 1623 The many truths of good fiction
To Those Who Killed Me by J.T. Siemens Edmonton: NeWest Press, 2022 $21.95 / 9781774390436 Reviewed by Candace Fertile * Out for a run in West Vancouver, Sloan Donovan finds her friend Geri dead in her Audi convertible, an apparent suicide. That’s page one, and the running never stops as Sloane tries to discover the…
Read more 1620 Enter Sloan Donovan
All the Bears Sing: Stories by Harold Macy Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2022 $24.95 / 9781990776007 Reviewed by W.H. New * Readers who enjoy tales of living and working in the BC woods and in small Coastal communities will find much to appreciate in Harold Macy’s collection of 23 tales and stories. Macy writes out…
Read more 1608 The vernacular of the country
Confessions with Keith: Extracts from the Journals of Vita Glass by Pauline Holdstock Windsor, ON: Biblioasis, 2022 $22.95 / 9781771964975 Reviewed by Candace Fertile * Vita Glass, the character at the centre of Pauline Holdstock’s latest novel, lives in an extreme amount of chaos. It’s no wonder as she has four children, a dog, a cat,…
Read more 1607 A year in a life