The series, now 23 books in length with one to come, has had characters from almost every profession. I do not recall a previous book featuring a major character from the “oldest profession”.
Calista Wallace has worked for seven years with The Right Woman “a discreet escort service that served two generations of our city’s wealthy and sexually needy men”. The agency charges $750 per hour with a 2 hour minimum.
Joanne’s husband, Zack Shreve, had been a client of the Right Woman before he met Joanne.
After a session with Noah Wainberg, the widowed spouse of Zack’s partner, Delia Wainberg, Calista ceases being a sex worker. Noah and Calista are immediately in love.
There are challenges for the couple as Calista periodically meets up with former clients in Regina, a city of 250,000.
Former Saskatchewan premier, Howard Dowhanuik, who is a decades long friend of Joanne, is a frustrated 83 year old man who has become publicly strident, even offensive.
What struck me the most in the book was the involvement of a new trio of teenage girls. Early in the series there had been Joanne’s daughter, Mieka, and her friends. Later it was Taylor, Joanne and Zack’s adopted daughter, and Gracie and Isobel who were the daughters of Zack’s law office partners. Now there are Lena and Madeleine, Joanne’s granddaughters, and Adrienne who is the daughter of Nova Langenegger, a producer at MediaNation.
The teenagers are bright and enthusiastic. They keep Joanne and Zack young at heart. I struggle to think of another writer of crime fiction who would have teenage girls hosting a toga party in the home of their sleuth.
Just when I think I can predict what will happen in Joanne’s family I am blindsided. In this book it is Taylor. Her life is altered in a way I would never have predicted.
Not everyone is doing well. Roger Millard, a sound engineer at MediaNation, is naturally reserved but he is drifting into trances. Normally Joanne can get the depressed and the discouraged to confide in her. Roger refuses.
Joanne’s life has had great heartaches and great joys. She speaks of a favourite meal she had when she was 14. She spent her childhood and teen years boarding at Bishop Lambeth in Toronto. Unable to go on a school organized Christmas skiing trip because of a broken arm she was alone with staff at the school. (I thought of the movie The Holdovers.) For Christmas dinner:
“The food that students in residence were served was good enough, nutritious but plain. So I was expecting an ordinary dish like shepherd’s pie, when Mrs. Olerenshaw, the cook, brought me a plate filled with prime rib, Yorkshire pudding, and all the trimmings of a British Christmas dinner - I was dazzled. It was the best meal I’d ever had, and as I ate it, I read and watched the snow, and that’s when I said, ‘So this is what it’s like to be happy’”.
As with many of the books in the series the cottages at Lawyer’s Bay in the Qu’Appelle Valley play an important role. They are a refuge and a retreat.
The Point Store at the lake is the community gathering place. It provides butter tarts and a spot for coffee and all the foods needed at a resort.
I find violence startling in Gail’s books because it happens infrequently and suddenly. There are not the multiplying body counts of many authors. Joanne is definitely not personally physically fighting anyone. I think the sparing use of violence reflects real life. Few people encounter violence regularly.
The impact of the violence on Joanne is intense. She does not brush it aside. She grieves hard. At the same time she is a Christian and has hope in her life. She moves ahead for the sake of herself and those around her.
The Solitary Friend is a great book. I was enveloped in Joanne’s world yet again in a comfortable and compelling and challenging plot. I look forward to the final book in the series.
****
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