Citizens of Light by Sam Shelstad

(33. - 1172.) - Citizens of Light by Sam Shelstad - Colleen Weagle is getting by.  She works at a Toronto call centre calling out to people across North America. She conducts phone surveys. The electric company survey can take 45 minutes. The job just covers the expenses of herself and her husband, Leonard. Much of his income from working in a plastics factory went on student loan payments. They live with her mother.

Now Leonard is gone. He was found over an hour from home in Morrison Bog, shot in the head. The police decided it was suicide.

Colleen is floundering. She is certain Leonard never shot himself. She cannot understand why he was in a distant Bog dressed in black clothes.

Her Mother is struggling with mental health issues. Her anxiety paralyzes her.

They reside in Mimico, a neighbourhood in Toronto, near Lake Ontario on the West side of the city.

When Colleen sees a photo in the Metro, a free newspaper, of a man who she remembers being at Leonard’s funeral she is certain he knows why Leonard is dead.

He is wearing a Fallsview Casino (a real life Casino in Niagara Falls) jacket. 

Colleen is a naive, maybe simple is more accurate, woman. Why this man should talk to her, should she find him, never enters her mind. She is positive that if she can reach this man she can find out what really happened and her anxiety over Leonard’s death will end.

It is a struggle for Colleen to take initiative. Being passive is her way of life.

I longed for her to turn from wimp to warrior. Undertaking an investigation into Leonard’s death takes her coping lifestyle into the unknown where she haltingly treads. Her friend, Patti, pushes and leads her to being more assertive.

It is hard to have a sleuth who is meek at heart. I am accustomed to sleuths who are brilliant or physical or both. Colleen was the stereotype of the “ordinary working woman”. 

Friends, family and co-workers are startled when she pursues an investigation into Leonard’s death.

While far from, Colleen and Patti remind me of a modern day Laverne and Shirley of sitcom fame. (At least fame for those of us who are seniors or near to being seniors.)

Her earnest efforts at investigation have the real life feel of the perils of an amateur sleuth. 

Colleen is a budget conscious sleuth. She travels by bus between Toronto and Niagara Falls.

Colleen's aggressiveness has bizarre consequences. The ending strained credibility. I sensed the closing was added to create drama rather than flowing from the plot.

As noted above Colleen did not have a dynamic personality. The sudden shift from passive past assertive to aggressor came too late and too suddenly for me.

Citizens of Light is a good book. It won the Crime Writers of Canada Award for Best First Novel in 2023. I hope Shelstad can publish more crime fiction. I am confident his next book will be better.