Death on Darby’s Island by Alice Walsh

(15. - 1130.) Death on Darby’s Island by Alice Walsh - “Secrets have a way of destroying us”.

In the summer of 1975 it is big news when a hypnotist, Prospero, comes to Darby’s Island off the coast of Newfoundland. Entertainment is limited on the island. The one television channel broadcasts dated shows. With just under 800 residents, little live entertainment comes to the island.

Blanche Ste. Croix is among the first women to join the RCMP. She is determined not to let the “mistreatment” drive her from the force. The patronizing and condescending attitudes of most fellow male officers is frustrating. Blanche grew up on the island and is back to investigate a complaint about the nursing home manager.

At the same time she is cautiously exploring a reconciliation with her separated husband, Coop Pickford. 

The constant nagging of her mother-in-law, Gert, has worn on her. Whether Blanche is with Coop or separated, Gert whines and complains about her.

Even Gert’s sharp tongue is briefly stilled when Archbishop Malloy, is found murdered on the shore and her husband, Jake, had been hypnotized and disappeared is now the prime suspect.

A vicious winter storm with “the wind gusting about a hundred knots” (185 km per hour) prevents other RCMP officers from coming to the island. Blanche’s reluctant superiors have to let her investigate. They are comforted that another officer, Martin Birsay, on leave to help with his wife who has Alzheimer’s, is on the island.

I am very familiar with small communities from growing up in rural Saskatchewan where everyone knows each other and family histories and most secrets. In fiction Darby’s Island is very different from the prosperous Three Pines of the Armand Gamache books of Louise Penny. Most barely get by on Darby’s Island.

Where and when I grew up in Saskatchewan life was between the comfortable Three Pines and the hard existence on Darby’s Island. While the bare times of pioneer life were easing in Saskatchewan, lives remained modest. 

The book moves back and forth between the early 1960’s and 1975. Blanche grew up hungry and cold in a dysfunctional family.

The caring of and for neighbours is and was common in rural Canada. When someone is killed in the country the community is shocked. On Darby’s Island, as inevitable, rumours abound.

I admired Blanche. I started my legal career in 1975. There were few women RCMP officers. They had no easier time in Western Canada than Atlantic Canada.

Blanche is no superwoman but she has a fierce resovle at her core to succeed as a police officer. At the same time she is not driven to work 24 hours a day. She understands the frightening power of secrets and their power over us.

It was an unusual book in that Blanche is both the investigator and either the relative or friend of the people she is investigating. Both Blanche and those she questions appear alright with her dual role.

It was a surprise to me to see Blanche stationed in her home province. In the mid-1970’s, at least in Western Canada, RCMP officers would be stationed outside the province in which they grew up. Well into their careers they might get a chance to get back to their home province.

The dialogue captures the lilt of the speech of Newfoundlanders. Walsh uses local expressions aptly. I thought she must have lived in Newfoundland even before I read the author’s biography.

I was not fond of the ending. It was the only part of the book that felt wrong. Overall, Death on Darby’s Island is a good book. I would like to read another book featuring Blanche. I hope it will be located off the Island. I would like to see Blanche in a different Newfoundland setting. 

(Death on Darby’s Island is the second book on the shortlist for the Crime Writers of Canada shortlist for Best Canadian Crime Novel Set in Canada. It is a sound choice.)