The Dead of False Creek: A Journal Through Time Mystery by Sarah M. Stephen Vancouver: WZE Press, 2021 $14.99 / 9781777833015 Reviewed by Dennis Wilkinson * This is not my genre! I’m into history, not time-bending fictional murder mysteries. Why then am I going to the trouble of reading and reviewing this book? The answer…
Read more 1539 When False Creek was mudflats
The Ghosts of Paris by Tara Moss Toronto: HarperCollins Canada, 2022 $24.99 / 9781443461252 Reviewed by Myshara Herbert-McMyn * Many of us have wished to travel into the past, whether for specific reasons or to experience a time vastly different from our own. Of course, historical fiction remains the most efficient and inexpensive way to…
Read more 1538 Finding Jack Rake
Red Fox Road by Frances Greenslade Toronto: Penguin Random House Canada (Puffin), 2022 (hardcover, 2020) $11.99 / 9780735267831 Reviewed by Cassidy Lea * If you ever got lost in the woods, what would you do? What would you need to survive? An axe, maybe some fishing gear, enough dehydrated food to feed you for a…
Read more 1534 Finding Francie Fox
Icefields by Thomas Wharton, with a foreword by Suzette Mayr Edmonton: NeWest Press, 2021 (first published 1995) $23.95 / 9781774390368 Reviewed by Geoffrey D. Morrison * A reissued novel poses a special task for the reviewer, not least because many of the things people say about a book the first time around tend to remain…
Read more 1532 Some things that remain true
Best Canadian Stories 2021 by Diane Schoemperlen (editor) Windsor, ON: Biblioasis, 2021 $18.99 / 9781771964364 Reviewed by Carol Matthews * There’s a rumour that the short story is on the decline and that publishers, not to mention the public, prefer novels. And yet, here we have the 2021 edition of Best Canadian Short Stories. The…
Read more 1526 Our strongest suit
Perilous Passage by Arthur Mayse, with an introduction by Susan Mayse Montreal: Véhicule Press, 2021 (first published by William Morrow and Company, 1949) $14.99 / 9781550655841 Reviewed by Miranda Marini * Despite being a Canadian author and despite his vast contributions to the Canadian literary canon, Arthur Mayse remains a lesser-known author among Canadian literature…
Read more 1522 A vintage west coast thriller
The Perfect Family by Robyn Harding Toronto: Simon and Schuster Canada, 2021 $24.99 / 9781982176877 Reviewed by Zoe McKenna * In front of the window overlooking my own quiet street, it is not at all difficult to imagine the suburban neighbourhood in which Robyn Harding’s The Perfect Family takes place. The Perfect Family is the…
Read more 1521 House of cards
A Funny Kind of Paradise by Jo Owens Toronto: Penguin Random House Canada (Random House Canada), 2021 $22.95 / 9780735278820 Reviewed by Ginny Ratsoy * An extended care facility in Victoria might seem a claustrophobic setting for a novel, particularly when a stroke has rendered speechless its narrator, Francesca, who inhabits a room with four…
Read more 1516 Memories and caregivers
Me Three by Susan Juby Toronto: Penguin Random House Canada, 2022 $22.99 / 9780735268722 * Mindful of Murder by Susan Juby Toronto: HarperCollins Canada, 2022 $24.99 / 9781443464437 Both books reviewed by Dana McFarland * “If you follow your dharma, you will bring good into the world.” – from Mindful of Murder by Susan Juby In…
Read more 1509 A twosome from Susan Juby
Swan Song by Sonja Ahlers Wolfville, NS: Conundrum Press, 2021 $20.00 / 9781772620627 Reviewed by Jeff Stychin * Sonja Ahlers’ Swan Song makes me wonder if we’re taking full advantage of the written discourse we use daily to communicate. Ahlers seems to have found an improved precept in which the form of the page becomes…
Read more 1508 Panels and palindromes
Under an Outlaw Moon by Dietrich Kalteis Toronto: ECW Press, 2021 $19.95 / 9781770415478 Reviewed by Alma Lee * This book might never have been written. Dietrich Kalteis was researching for another book and came across the intriguing story of Bennie and Stella Mae Dickson. How could an author resist telling this tale of tragic…
Read more 1506 The time-lock bandits
Serena Singh Flips the Script by Sonya Lalli Toronto: Penguin Random House Canada (Berkley), 2021 $22.00 / 9780593100936 Reviewed by Myshara Herbert-McMyn * Serena Singh doesn’t want the domestic bliss of a husband and children in her life and she’s ready to show her family that it’s possible to be happy with her new job…
Read more 1496 Listening to Ainsley
Framed in Fire: A Lane Winslow Mystery by Iona Whishaw Victoria: Touchwood Editions, 2022 $16.95 / 9781771513807 Reviewed by Ginny Ratsoy * The past is still, for us, a place that is not yet safely settled. — Michael Ondaatje, from The Faber Book of Contemporary Canadian Short Stories (1990) In the nine Lane Winslow mysteries…
Read more 1492 Postwar Kootenay intrigue
Help! I’m Alive by Gurjinder Basran Toronto: ECW Press, 2022 $22.95 / 9781770416307 Reviewed by Brett Josef Grubisic * On the very surface, Help! I’m Alive isn’t a novel about paucity. After all, there’s the thrum of an urban population busy with careers, errands, appointments, and hobbies. Smooth governance and well-funded infrastructure assure the maintenance…
Read more 1489 Jacob McAlister’s suicide
Face: A Novel of the Anthropocene by Jaspreet Singh Victoria: Touchwood Editions, 2022 $22.00 / 9781927366974 Reviewed by Danial Neil * A novel of the Anthropocene, a word with great weight, perhaps not easily used in a sentence or casual conversation. Still, it demands you to look, to understand, to fully come to terms with…
Read more 1488 A story of consequence
Just One Look by Lindsay Cameron Toronto: Penguin Random House Canada (Ballantine Books), 2022 $23.00 / 9780593159071 Reviewed by Zoe McKenna * As the first pages of Lindsay Cameron’s Just One Look unfold, it becomes clear that Cassie Woodson is not to be trusted. The ease with which Cassie learns every intimate detail about a…
Read more 1485 A perilous email rabbit hole
For Freedom We Will Fight: The Industrial Workers of the World in British Columbia, 1905-1990 by Larry Gambone Edmonton: Black Cat Press, 2021 $16.00 / 9781926878263 Reviewed by Ron Verzuh * B.C.’s Wobblies: A radical union that will not die The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), known everywhere as the Wobblies, were once the…
Read more 1482 The black cat lives on
Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel Toronto: Harper Collins Canada, 2022 $29.99 / 9781443466097 Reviewed by W.H. New * In the first paragraphs of Part 1 of Sea of Tranquility, dated 1912, a young man named Edwin St. John St. Andrew stands ‘with gloved hands’ on the upper deck of a mid-Atlantic steamship,…
Read more 1479 Play time
Small Game Hunting at the Local Coward Gun Club by Megan Gail Coles Toronto, House of Anansi, 2019 $22.95 / 9781487001711 Reviewed by Jessica Poon * Everyone has an airplane story; here’s mine: he introduced himself as Alex and he was aggrieved by the state of the world — it was ending, calamitously, and he was…
Read more 1469 Throbbingly three-dimensional
Ghost Geographies: Fictions by Tamas Dobozy Vancouver: New Star Books, 2021 $24.00 / 9781554201792 Reviewed by W.H. New * First off: Tamas Dobozy is a friend, so I’m not completely impartial. But I’ve now read this collection of stories three times, and each time I’m more impressed. This is a major book: serious, wryly humorous,…
Read more 1465 Dark Wry