About Me

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Melfort, Saskatchewan, Canada
I am a lawyer in Melfort, Saskatchewan, Canada who enjoys reading, especially mysteries. Since 2000 I have been writing personal book reviews. This blog includes my reviews, information on and interviews with authors and descriptions of mystery bookstores I have visited. I strive to review all Saskatchewan mysteries. Other Canadian mysteries are listed under the Rest of Canada. As a lawyer I am always interested in legal mysteries. I have a separate page for legal mysteries. Occasionally my reviews of legal mysteries comment on the legal reality of the mystery. You can follow the progression of my favourite authors with up to 15 reviews. Each year I select my favourites in "Bill's Best of ----". As well as current reviews I am posting reviews from 2000 to 2011. Below my most recent couple of posts are the posts of Saskatchewan mysteries I have reviewed alphabetically by author. If you only want a sentence or two description of the book and my recommendation when deciding whether to read the book look at the bold portion of the review. If you would like to email me the link to my email is on the profile page.

Saturday, February 1, 2014

Shaking Hands with the Devil

Roméo Dallaire
Authors work hard to create different characters, people with backgrounds and talents that are not stereotypes. At the same time they cannot be so odd as to be incredible. I need to be able to identify in some way with most characters to be interested in them.

Characters are bound to be alike between books, especially by authors from the same country, as the shared experiences of a nation provide inspiration. Still I found it striking to have read a pair of books in the past couple of months just published by British Columbia authors and set in the same area of B.C. that have so many similarities between a couple of characters.

In Cold White Sun by Vicki Delany math teacher, Mark Hamilton, is a former Canadian army soldier who served in Afghanistan. His war service has left him haunted and struggling with life. He contemplates suicide to escape the pain. Obsessively working out and teaching gets him through the day.

In Open Secret by Deryn Collier, which I reviewed in my last post, the sleuth is Bern Fortier, a retired Lieutenant-Colonel from the Canadian army. His military career took him into three major conflicts – the genocidal massacres of Rwanda, the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and the war in Afghanistan. His psyche has also been damaged by his participation in these conflicts. While not suicidal his mental burdens are heavy because of a secret he has carried with him for 20 years since Rwanda. Bern spends a lot of time out of doors working in his garden and walking to occupy his mind and body.

It is almost inevitable that two characters who were in the Canadian army over the past two decades would be much alike. The Canadian armed forces are much smaller, even in proportion to population, than the American military. Rwanda, the first Gulf War, Somalia, Bosnia / Croatia and Afghanistan are essentially the wars in which Canadian troops have taken part since the Korean War.

Of those conflicts Rwanda is most deeply painful in Canadian memories principally because of Canadian General Roméo Dallaire.

When Saskatchewan author Gregory Miller in his book, Silence Invites the Dead, wanted his protagonists to have war experiences he takes journalist, Myles Stirling, Colonel John McTaggart and Captain Ed Braun to the killing fields and streets of Rwanda. In my review I said they “struggle to hold their sanity in the carnage of Rwanda”.

I felt McTaggert was inspired by Dallaire who was commander of UN forces in Rwanda during the genocide. Prevented by UN headquarters from intercepting weapons and possessing but few forces he helped saved thousands of Tutsis but could not stop the slaughter of hundreds of thousands. While he had done all he could he has been truly haunted and attempted suicide. He continues to serve Canada as a member of our Senate.
 
Dallaire in his book, Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda said:
 
     “I know there is a God because in Rwanda I shook hands with
     the devil. I have seen him, I have smelled him and I have
     touched him. I know the devil exists and therefore I know there
     is a God.”  

Too many of our heroes have been mentally damaged while in the service of our country.

12 comments:

  1. I probably won't read either book, but that was a really interesting and thoughtful post, Bill.

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  2. Bill - I couldn't agree more. There is so much mental damage caused by war. It's one of war's most awful and lasting effects I think. And I'm not surprised that you find similarities among characters. The military of each country is its own culture, and certain events have impacted that culture. So it's only natural that you would see some commonalities. A really interesting post, for which thanks.

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    1. Margot: Thanks for the comment. I have met 2 young officers still suffering from their time in Afghanistan. I expect you have met former soldiers in the classes you teach.

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  3. Our soldiers have been through so much. Even when the mandate is supposedly "peacekeeping", the reality on the ground is often anything but. My mystery Honour Among Men (written before the current high-profile coverage) dealt with PTSD among our peacekeepers in the Balkans. Romeo Dallaire, in person and through his book, was the inspiration for that book.

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    1. Barbara: Thanks for the comment. I am going to go looking for Honour Among Men. When our soldiers are sent into areas where a form of civil war is underway they are forced to deal with stressful and wrenching problems which they, too often, cannot solve under their mandate.

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  4. Excellent post, and these novels you mention are good examples of oft-dismissed genre fiction that explore real-world social problems, maybe not as their main objective, but still shedding light for readers into the problems faced by these and other members of our society whose are still too often overlooked or outright dismissed by policy-makers.

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    1. Jayne: Thanks for the kind words. I have read many insightful explorations of social issues in crime fiction. As I rarely read literary fiction I cannot comment on that genre's involvement in social issues. Biased as I am, I think legal mysteries have delved into many important real life legal issues in ways that are far more interesting than non-fiction analyses.

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  5. Bill, thanks for a most interesting post. I felt depressed just reading about the conflict between the Tutsis and Hutus during the Rwandan genocide, so I cannot even fathom what our soldiers go through during peacekeeping and other military operations.

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    1. Prashant: Thanks for the comment. Those in charge at UN Headquarters failed the peacekeeping soldiers in Rwanda. We can only hope they never hesitate in a comparable future situation.

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  6. Bill, this was a very interesting post, on topics I have don't know a lot about. I will look into the books and authors you have mentioned.

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    1. TracyK: Thanks for the comment. Because of the prominent involvement of the Canadian military in leadership of the UN force in Rwanda our nation has always had strong feelings on how the conflict there was handled.

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