Silence Invites the Dead by Scott Gregory Miller

Kerrie Smith at her blog, Mysteries in Paradise, is hosting a meme, the Alphabet in Crime Fiction. This week mysteries involving the letter "M" are being posted. I have chosen a Saskatchewan mystery. Set in the late winter of Sakatchewan it seemed particularly appropriate when spring is coming slow to Saskatchewan in 2011. There is still half a meter of snow in my backyard. The book provides excellent descriptions of rural Saskatchewan.

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35. - 445.) Silence Invites the Dead by Scott Gregory Miller – What an opening! A veteran journalist, Myles Sterling, and two Canadian soldiers, Colonel John McTaggart (think of Romeo D’Allaire) and Captain Ed Braun, struggle to hold their sanity in the carnage of Rwanda. All 3 return to Saskatchewan and 7 years later are in Candle Lake when the body of the Colonel is found in the lake near his ice fishing hut. Despite an official finding of accidental death Sterling is convinced it was murder. As he searches for the truth he becomes involved with the beautiful Bonnie Matheson and her artistic brother, Brendan. The investigation is hampered by the miseries of the late Saskatchewan winter. The overall plot is excellent. I found the ending alittle contrived. The characters do not always seem like they are from Saskatchewan. The physical descriptions of the province are completely convincing. It was a good book. I expect the next will be better. In the pantheon of Saskatchewan fictional investigators Sterling is a considerable distance behind Joanna Kilbourn and Russell Quant. (Aug. 24/08)