9th Canadian Reading Challenge Roundup (Part II)

In my last post I listed the 16 books I had read for the 9^th Canadian Book Challenge. Rather than the calendar year each year’s Challenge goes from Canada Day (July 1) to the following Canada Day. All 16 books I read this year were crime fiction.

Of the settings of the 16 books what struck me was how few were set just in Canada:

1.) Only 5 of the 16 books took place in Canada (one each in Alberta, Quebec, Ontario, Saskatchewan and the Yukon);

2.) There were 3 books with settings inside and outside Canada (Saskatchewan and the South Pacific, Cuba and Northern Ontario, Quebec and the United States); and,

3.) Most surprising was that 8 of the books were set outside Canada (4 in England, two in the United States, one in France and one in Croatia).

These personal stats reflect an issue I raised in recent posts on the number of cross-border Canadian mysteries and the “encouragement” of publishers for authors to set their books outside Canada.

For the 8^th Canadian Book Challenge my reading had 13 of 18 books set in Canada. I am hoping this past year’s stats are an aberration.

My favourite Canadian read of the year was The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley. Flavia de Luce captured me as she has enthralled legions around the world. An 11 year old girl living in rural England in the 1950’s is an unlikely sleuth but Bradley has created a wonderful character in Flavia. She is a bright engaging girl. Her love of chemistry and fascination with poisons adds to her allure. The mystery was well done and the importance of a postage stamp to the plot an unusual intrigue. I was not as excited about the next in the series, The Weed that Strings the Hangman’s Bag, but it would have been very difficult to equal The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie. I have the 3^rd in the series to read and will be interested to see how the series develops with Flavia.

Second was What’s Left Behind by Gail Bowen. The 16^th Joanne Kilbourn mystery sees Joanne involved in a bruising municipal referendum on development (I do not think Gail was prescient in anticipating a nation changing referendum in the United Kingdom) and the murder of a young woman farmer. While not the focus of the book I will not forget What’s Left Behind for its involvement in heritage poultry. The victim’s prized poultry were also killed. I had never heard of “Blue Andalusians, scarlet-combed Langshans, Swedish Flower , Ridley Bronze turkeys and pink-billed Aylesbury ducks” before reading the book.

Third was Another Margaret by Janice MacDonald. The concept of the book was challenging. Miranda “Randy” Craig is a Master’s student at the University of Alberta researching a reclusive Albertan author who has written a quartet of well regarded books when a new book appears decades later. The unique aspect of the book is that MacDonald created detailed plot lines for the books being researched by Randy. MacDonald actually plotted out 6 books in the writing of Another Margaret.

I admired MacDonald’s witty insights into academic life. While working on invitations to a reunion of grad students Randy remarks:

Who knew there that many English majors in the world? You’d think there would be far fewer apostrophe problems on signage.

At the other end of the spectrum I was disappointed with the books by Anthony Bidulka and Louise Penny.

I found I could not suspend disbelief with regard to Anthony’s book that had over 100 people secretly on a South Pacific island. It is a hard premise in the 21^st Century to have so many people marooned on a desert isle.

I equally struggled with Louise Penny’s premise of a giant supergun lying hidden in the woods a short distance from Three Pines. Inspector Armand Gamache is not the sleuth for a doomsday thriller.

It was a good year of Canadian reading and I have started reading for the 10^th Challenge.

9th Canadian Book Challenge Roundup (Part I)

Sharon and I spent Canada Day in Regina. I had covered the Roughriders season opener last night and we stayed over.

The drive home was almost a classic rural Saskatchewan drive. For most of the 300 km we were on cruise control sailing down a quiet highway watching the clouds moving across the vast sky while listening to 60's rock on the radio.

Then we came over a hill and there was the wreckage of a bad accident in the ditch. Several vehicles had already stopped to help and we were directed on. As we drove on to Melfort seven emergency vehicles passed us as they responded to the accident.

I am a little subdued thinking about the accident as I write this post on successfully completing the 9th Canadian Book Challenge which ran from July 1, 2015 to yesterday.

For the Challenge readers seek to read 13 books by Canadian authors.

The books I read were:

1.) No Known Grave by Maureen Jennings

2.) Plague by C.C. Humphreys

3.) Booked for Trouble by Eva Gates

4.) Another Margaret by Janice MacDonald

5.) The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley

6.) The Nature of the Beast by Louise Penny - Part I and Part II

7.) Tropéano’s Gun by John Brooke

8.) The Women of Skawa Island by Anthony Bidulka

9.) The Night Bell by Inger Ash Wolfe

10.) The Weed that Strings the Hangman's Bag by Alan Bradley

11.) The Wail of the Windigo by Steve Pitt

12.) What's Left Behind by Gail Bowen

13.) The Heart of Hell by Alen Mattich

14.) Hungry Ghosts by Peggy Blair

15.) A Killing in Zion by Andrew Hunt

16.) The Storm Murders by John Farrow

For the 7th Challenge I read 18 books and for the 9th Challenge it was 19 books.

I appreciate John Mutford hosting the Challenge at his fine blog, The Book Mine Set.

In my next post I will discuss the books I read during the 9th Challenge.

A Killing in Zion by Andrew Hunt

(26. – 868.)  A Killing in Zion by Andrew Hunt – In the broiling summer of 1934 Detective Lieutenant Art Oveson is chosen to head the new Anti-Polygamy Squad of the Salt Lake City Police. Mayor Cummings has decided to take a stand against the barely private polygamists in his city. 

It will not be an easy investigation. While a breakaway sect, the Fundamentalist Church of Saints, espouses polygamy they are careful to publicly maintain only one wife. Secretly the leaders are sealed to numerous other women. 

Oveson, a devout Mormon, supports the position of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints which disavowed polygamy in 1890 as one of the conditions of statehood for Utah.

Along with “most modern Mormons” Oveson scorns the polygamists:

Reasons for this powerful dislike were numerous. The simplest explanation, the pat one, was that polygs made a mockery out of marriage and family. Yet in my more reflective moments, I was willing to concede that my hatred for the men in my slide show was rooted in my inability to come to terms with the lives of my ancestors. Not so long ago, my great-grandparents on both sides engaged in plural marriage, practicing the same custom as the men I now detested.

The book caught me by surprise. I did not understand before reading the book that the current issues with plural marriages were already present in 1934.

The leader of the Fundamentalist Church in A Killing in Zion is LeGrand Johnston, “Uncle Grand” to his followers. Considered a prophet by the members of his Church he follows a daily routine visiting women who deny being his wives and tending to Church business. It is a good life at 79.

Oveson is spending his days and evenings following Uncle Grand hoping to see evidence that would support charges against the aging prophet.

One night after Uncle Grand has met with his apostles he returns to the Church containing his office. He is accompanied by his driver / bodyguard.

Oveson and another member of the squad, his friend, Roscoe Lund, are startled when they hear shots fired in the Church. They rush inside to find Uncle Grand and his bodyguard dead. They have been shot.

While searching the building the police find a terrified young teenage girl in a closet. She will not speak to them. Oveson, unsure of her role in the evening but unwilling to have her taken to the Utah State Industrial School, takes her home. He fails to notice she is wearing a silver wedding ring.

Oveson’s wife, Clara, pregnant with their third child, is unhappy that he has not consulted in her advance. When she finds out the alternative is the grim state reformatory she readily agrees the teenager can stay with them. No matter how hard they try the Oveson’s cannot get her to say or write anything.

With apostles and church members refusing to provide statements the investigation is barely progressing. Oveson is able to learn there are divisions with the Fundamentalist Church.

An ill-fated decision is made to arrest the 11 living apostles of the Fundamentalist Church and question them aggressively with the expectation they can get one or more to crack and provide the information needed to solve the murders.

The interrogations do not go well. In addition to their innate unwillingness to answer the police their lawyer, Granville Sondrup, counsels them to be silent.

The unjustified arrests produce a public outcry that predictably leads to political pressure from City Hall to blame allegedly headstrong police officers for the fiasco.

Oveson is an honourable man. There are not many in current crime fiction. He neither swears nor drinks alcohol nor consumes coffee nor abuses drugs. He is true to his Mormon faith and loves his family and greatly enjoys ice cream with his wife as a treat. He goes to work secure in the knowledge he has a happy family who will be glad to see him in the evening. I admire him.

His best friend on the police force Roscoe is irreligious, a hard drinker, swears constantly, has no family, engages in brief liasons and is deeply depressed. Oveson, seeing a loyal man who can be a good police officer, does not condemn Roscoe and works hard to keep the self-destructive Roscoe on the force.

As they work to solve the crime there is not a lot of mystery. What drew me along were the characters and learning about Mormon life and history. I did not realize how little I knew about Mormons until I read A Killing in Zion.

Hunt is convincing in his portrayal of life and murder in Salt Lake City of 1934. I would like to read more of Art Oveson.

A Killing in Zion is the 4^th book I have read from the shortlist for the 2016 Arthur Ellis Award for Best Canadian Crime Fiction Novel. (June 22, 2016)

Hungry Ghosts by Peggy Blair

Hungry Ghosts by Peggy Blair – Ghosts of murder victims are appearing to Inspector Ricardo Ramirez in Havana. They never speak but do gesture to him. He has been haunted for some time:

    For years, Ramirez had been shadowed
    by ghosts. His Yoruba slave
    grandmother  had prophesized that
    messengers would come, sent by Elegua, 
    the god of the crossroads. They began to
    appear shortly after Ramirez's
    promotion. 

The title comes through a conversation Ramirez has with Dr. Yeung from China:

     "I am a Taoist, Inspector Ramirez," said Yeung. "We believe

     animals have souls. And we believe there are three kinds of

     ghosts. There are orphan ghosts, who have no children to

     honour them properly. There are the ghosts of those who die

     violently, who sometimes come back for revenge. And then

     there are the hungry ghosts, the ones who can't feed themselves

     enough no matter how hard they try. Most murdered women are

     hungry ghosts.

As the book opens he is dealing with the murder of a clearly well-to-do man, probably a foreigner. No identification had been found.

Before he can investigate he is called to the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes where a bomb threat has forced the evacuation of the building. While emptied of people someone has defaced with red paint five portraits from a collection of Italian masterpieces on exhibition.

A short time later the ghost of a young woman appears to Ramirez. A prostitute, she has been manually strangled and then had a stocking tied around her neck. Ramirez is reminded of an earlier murder of a prostitute.

At the same time, mid-winter, in northern Ontario (the real life location is hard to understand) the body of a woman has been found on the Manomin Bay First Nation. A barricade built by the members of the band to protest the re-opening of a mill near the reserve is keeping non-residents, including police, from the reserve.

Charlie Pike of the Ottawa Police is a member of the Manomin Bay band. He is dispatched north to investigate the crime because the protesters will let him through the blockade.

For some time the Highway Strangler Task Force has been identifying connections between murdered women and want to know if this victim fits the profile. The deceased is different from the women listed by the Task Force. They were all indigenous. She is white.

The Canadian section of the mystery draws upon a national search for missing and dead indigenous women. A Royal Commission of Inquiry is about to delve into the issue.

In the autopsy the cause of death is manual strangulation.

In Cuba Ramirez copes with the frustrations of life in a desperately poor country which is regressing as a nation. Shortages abound. Corruption is increasing. The socialist dream is descending into nightmare.

Back in Canada, as he investigates on the reserve, Pike is drawn back to his youth and the brutal residential school he endured.

On his reserve a strong connection remains to Ojibway traditions.

I appreciated how Blair deals with the details of life for Ramirez and Pike outside their police work. I was drawn into their lives.

As I read I wondered how Blair was going to connect murders in big city Havana with murders in rural Canada. It is a challenge to draw to together multiple investigations, there are three in this book, but Blair credibly puts them together.

The book highlights the ongoing consequences across Canada of the damage done to Indians who attended residential schools.

I did find the book preached at times. All of the indigenous Canadians in the book are victims. All of their problems are traced to residential schools and government actions with regard to their lands. I have dealt through my legal career with the issues of indigenous Canadians. Not all of them are victims. For those with problems, the causes are not as simplistic as the book.

While I tired at times on how indigenous lifestyles were portrayed it is a very good book.

Ramirez and Pike are wonderful characters. I am not found of spirits in mysteries but the ghosts about Ramirez do not detract from the investigation and do not solve the mystery. Pike has no ghosts but he has unresolved issues from his youth when he narrowly escaped from a life that had him on a path to prison.

While titled an Inspector Ramirez mystery it is about Ramirez and Pike. I hope they are both in Blair’s next mystery. I would like to spend more time with them.

Hungry Ghosts is one of the five books that formed the shortlist for the 2016 Arthur Ellis Award for Best Canadian Crime Novel.

The Storm Murders by John Farrow

(24. – 866.) The Storm Murders by John Farrow (psudeonym of Trevor Ferguson) – Two members of the Surete du Quebec are called to a farm house near Montreal just after a fierce snowstorm. As they enter the house they can see from the undisturbed drifts no one has entered or left the house that day.

Inside the house they find the husband dead downstairs. Searching upstairs they find the wife badly wounded. When no gun is near her they know it was no murder / suicide and realize no one has left the house but there is no one else in any of the rooms. They call for assistance.

As one officer looks out of the bedroom door he is shot and when his partner reflexively looks out he is shot.

When backup arrives they find four bodies and no sign of any footprints leading away.

What has happened to the killer?

FBI special agent, Rand Dreher, calls upon retired Sergeant-Detective, Emile Cinq-Mars, who is living near the murder scene. He wants Cinq-Mars to serve as a consultant to the FBI. The murders in Canada follow a pattern of some American killings.

Dreher hopes Cinq-Mars, a legend in Quebec, can help with the investigation.

Cinq-Mars accompanies a former colleague, Sergeant-Detective Bill Mathers, and Dreher to the crime scene. Through his powers of observation, unlike the usually forensic dependent current detective, he works out what has happened in the farm house. It is simple but clever.

As common for me in crime fiction I had not figured out how the murders were committed though I had full access to all the information needed.

Cinq-Mars hesitates to do more. His much younger wife, Sandra, is unhappy and their marriage is in trouble. He decides on a unique form of marital therapy. He will share with her everything he learns in the investigation. He is no longer a police officer. He has no oath of secrecy.

Sandra’s participation added intrigue to the book. She does not become an investigator. She does think about the evidence and adds her suggestions. What happens to Sandra provides a vivid illustration of the risks of murder investigations by spouses.

The investigation takes them to New Orleans where they meet a large flamboyant New Orleans detective, Marcus Dupree.

A dark tale gradually unfolds.

While I wish I were a better armchair deducer there was an important issue with regard to the murdered couples in Quebec and New Orleans that was immediately obvious to me but not to the investigators. It was recognized far later than plausible.

It is inevitable that a book featuring a brilliant middle aged Quebec detective will invite comparisons with Armand Gamache of the mysteries written by Louise Penny. Cinq-Mars and Gamache are certainly not identical but they could have been cousins. I appreciate older sleuths whose analytical skills are more important than their physical prowess.

Aspects of the Hollywood style conclusion challenged credibility but I thought it a very good book. The inventiveness of the murders drew me into the book. Most modern murders lack believable ingenuity.

The Storm Murders is the 3^rd book I have read from the shortlist for the 2016 Arthur Ellis Award for Best Crime Fiction Novel.

The Heart of Hell by Alen Mattich

(17. – 859.) The Heart of Hell by Alen Mattich – The third Marko Della Torre novel is a continuation of Killing Pilgrim. In that book Swedish Prime Minister, Olof Palme, was assassinated by a killer from the Yugoslavian Secret Service. The story sees Della Torre involved in an American plan to kill the assassin known as “The Montenegrin”.

With this book carrying on the story it is difficult to review without passing on information that would potentially spoil Killing Pilgrim. There are spoilers in this review with regard to the earlier book.

It has been a few months since the end of Killing Pilgrim and Della Torre is back in Zagreb. The simmering conflict between Croatia and Serbia over Croatia’s declaration of independence has boiled into war. Regular and irregular Serb forces are attacking Croatia by land and blockading the Croatian coast.

While America does not recognize Croatia’s independence members of the Croatian government are working hard to gain American support.

When America wants help in going after the Montenegrin for killing the three Americans who tried to kill him the Croatian government will gladly assist.

As Della Torre was a part of the earlier mission he is pressed, even threatened, to aid the American intelligence officers going after the Montenegrin.

It is clear to Della Torre that the Americans are after corrupt police officer, Julius Strumbic, who was part of the earlier mission. The American team is not interested in seeing Strumbic arrested.

Still, why would America put such resources into pursuing the killers of a trio of Americans who had undertaken a dangerous mission? Della Torre never really knew why Palme would be assasinated by a Yugoslavian agent. There were rumours related to Swedish assembly of centrifuges used in nuclear power and bombs but why a Yugoslavian conducted killing? Centrifuges were being sent to Yugoslavia but what risk could Palme be to Yugoslavia?

Despite threats against his family Della Torre refuses to join the Americans and sets out with his superior for Dubrovnik with some vague plan to warn Strumbic. While his journey and quest are in the best traditions of thriller fiction it was the weakest part of the plot. With Dubrovnik under a tight blockade it is almost impossible to reach the city. It would have been simpler to have sent a message to Strumbic. Though getting a message through would have been difficult it would have been easier than breaching the blockade.

The actual getting through the blockade was the best part of the book. It was ingenious and unexpected.

I did not really find enough in the plot to sustain the American killing mission and resolution of Killing Pilgrim. Now it may be somewhat unfair as Killing Pilgrim had such a brillian premise and execution. The theme of The Heart of Hell is more modest. Mattich did raise my reading expectations with the excellence of Killing Pilgrim. I found The Heart of Hell an average thriller.

I missed a deeper involvement in the book of Della Torre’s family. They played roles but were not as important as in Killing Pilgrim. Their minor presence left the book a more conventional thriller.

I did gain appreciation of the ferocity of Balkan wars. Hatred runs deep in Croatia and Serbia.

****

Mattich, Alen - (2015) - Killing Pilgrim and Who Killed Olof Palme?

What’s Left Behind by Gail Bowen

What’s Left Behind by Gail Bowen – The 16^th Joanne Kilbourn mystery involves urban and rural Saskatchewan and their interaction.

In Regina Joanne is in the midst of a bruising political campaign over a referendum on bylaws that would restrict urban sprawl and promote mixed use developments in the city. She is leading the Yes forces against the city’s largest developer and past adversary, Lancaster Developments.

In the country the beautiful Lee Crawford is an intriguing young woman. A graduate of the College of Agriculture at the University of Saskatchewan she returned to run the family farm after her stepfather, Colin Brokenshire, was killed in a farm accident.

While it is no longer unusual for a woman to be a farmer what is unexpected is that Lee is raising heritage poultry, heirloom apples and heirloom vegetables. In particular, the poultry caught my attention - “Blue Andalusians, scarlet-combed Langshans, Swedish Flower Hens, Ridley Bronze turkeys and pink-billed Aylesbury ducks”.

Lee is also a member of the Citizens for Planned Growth Group (CPG), a collection of organizations, providing volunteers for the Yes campaign but they are a fractious group.

Within the family Joanne and her husband, Zack Shreeve, are hosting the wedding of their oldest son Peter and Maisie, the twin sister of Lee, at their cottage at Lawyers Bay. They are an optimistic family planning an outdoor wedding in May. While our province finally sheds winter and becomes green in May there is the risk of snow not just rain through the month.

Their confidence is well founded as the sun shines wedding morning but tension arises. Simon Weber, the emotionally troubled former lover of Lee, appears off shore in a yellow canoe. Constrained by a court order from coming ashore he still desperately wants to see Lee and sits there watching the festivities for over four hours.

During the wedding reception, Lee accepts the long standing proposal of her neighbour, Bobby Stevens, and Joanne ends the day happy but a little uneasy.

During the night Lee’s heritage poultry are killed. The next day emotions are roiling everywhere as accusations and denials flow back and for between the Yes and No forces.

Rumours are floated about Lee’s background. At a meeting she asks not be made the focal point of the campaign fueling more speculation. Joanne and her trusted advisor, Milo, work to dampen the fury and keep their supporters focused on the issues.

When Lee is murdered in the barn at her farm I was surprised. I did not see Lee becoming the victim. She was a fascinating character with an interesting background and future yet there are real issues in her past. It is not often an author can create such a sympathetic victim who still arouses murderous passions in other characters.

It is a book filled with emotions in and out of families past and present.

 

Not many mysteries discuss the impact on a woman of being the mother of young children:

 

    The dagger nails were now short and unpolished, the flaxen hair  

    had returned to its natural honey blond, and these days Margot's

    wardrobe was pretty much wash and wear. That morning she was

    in sneakers, blue jean cutoffs, and a T-shirt that read "Childbirth:

    A Labour of Love."

Bowen follows with an affectionate remark on breastfeeding.

What’s Left Behind is not one of my favourite stories in the series. The mayoral election was the focus of the previous book in the series, 12 Rose Street. I would have preferred a theme in this book other than having another political campaign, the referendum on the bylaws, but a short time after the election. Lee’s role in the referendum fight did not connect with her being a farmer and resident outside the city did not work as well for me.

What did work very well was Joanne as sleuth.

As she is neither a private investigator nor a police officer her role in investigations is always limited. What she has over the police is a better sense of the connections between the characters and their motivations.

It is not often I read mysteries solved by the sleuth’s ability to think. So many current mysteries involve the sleuth crashing around. Joanne is not cerebral in the mystery in the context of formal academics though she spent her working life as a university professor. What’s Left Behind showcases Joanne’s talents in analyzing information and understanding relationships. She has a great sensitivity to the nature of personal relationships.

And Joanne becomes a grandmother again. How many sleuths are proud grandparents?

****

Bowen, Gail – 2011 Questions and Answers with Gail; 2011 Suggestions for Gail on losing court cases; The author's website is http://www.gailbowen.com/ - (2011) Deadly Appearances; (2013) Murder at the Mendel; The Wandering Soul Murders (Not reviewed); A Colder Kind of Death (Not reviewed); A Killing Spring (Not reviewed); Verdict in Blood (Not reviewed); (2000) - Burying Ariel (Second best fiction of 2000); (2002) - The Glass Coffin; (2004) - The Last Good Day; (2007) – The Endless Knot (Second Best Fiction of 2007); (2008) - The Brutal Heart; (2010) - The Nesting Dolls; (2012) - "B" is for Gail Bowen; (2012) - Kaleidoscope and Q & A on Kaleidoscope; (2013) - The Gifted and Q & A and Comparing with How the Light Gets In; (2015) - 12 Rose Street; Q & A with Gail Bowen on Writing and the Joanne Kilbourn Series Hardcover

 

The Wail of the Wendigo by Steve Pitt

(12. – 854.) The Wail of the Wendigo by Steve Pitt – The 5^th book in the Leaders & Legacies series of adventures of future Canadian Prime Ministers features Pierre Elliott Trudeau our 15^th Prime Minister and probably the best known Prime Minister of the last 60 years.

It departs from the format of earlier books in the series in that it is not an adventure set in the area where the future Prime Minister is growing up at the time of the story. Rather than a plot set in Montreal The Wail of the Wendigo sees the 11 year old Trudeau travel across Canada to the Yukon with his father, Charles-Emile Trudeau.

It is a book filled with references to real life people and scenes linking the young Trudeau to his time as Prime Minister that most young readers are unlikely to appreciate but are certainly clear to readers of my age.

The book provides the most intriguing reason why Trudeau, as Prime Minister, wore a fresh red rose every day.

When they reach the Yukon Trudeau meets Pierre Berton, also 11 years old. As an adult Berton became Canada’s best known popular historian writing over 50 books.

To avoid confusion the two Pierres are called Trudeau and Berton.

Charles-Emile has hired Berton’s father, Frank, as a mining consultant to evaluate a claim that he has purchased on the Rat River in the North West Territories. The evaluation to be conducted by panning for gold will take most of the summer.

Trudeau is startled to find Dawson City in the Yukon is but a town of two story wood buildings hanging on thirty years after the end of the Klondike Gold Rush. Trudeau had been expecting a metropolis in the bush.

The Berton’s and the Trudeau’s are flown into the bush in a float plane piloted by Wilfrid “Wop” May, another real life character who was a WW I fighter pilot and was being chased by the Red Baron when the German ace was shot down.

Exploring for gold in the wilderness sounds likely an exciting summer but panning for gold is less romantic than repetitive hard work. The boys are dreading a long dreary summer until their fathers decided to have them go hunting and fishing to provide meat and fish for the camp.

While credible to me, I was a good shot by the time I was 11, it is unlikely today that a pair of 11 year olds would be given a .22 rifle and directed to go hunting on their own.

The city boys are poor hunters and the story is dragging when they meet Henni, a mainly indigenous 11 year old girl, who is living in the bush with her parents to avoid being sent to residential school. She quietly provides Trudeau and Berton with some of her game and fish and then teaches them how to be hunters.

The story takes off when there is an attack upon the camp and the Wendigo, an evil spirit in the spiritual world of Canadian Indians, takes the story into the paranormal. While I do not venture often into the world of the parnormal it is clearly a very popular genre for young and not so young Canadians in 2016. It was equally popular 85 years ago. Trudeau loves reading books featuring monsters and the paranormal in 1931. I certainly know I am not the target audience of the series.

The involvement of the Wendigo brought the book alive. I wish the Wendigo had arrived sooner in the plot.

The Wail of the Wendigo is a solid book.

The book is plausible in taking Trudeau into the bush and having him comfortable far from city life. In real life Trudeau loved the outdoors and was an accomplished canoeist. He passed on his love of the outdoors to his sons. His oldest son, Justin, is now our Prime Minister.

I hope young readers draw inspiration from the book. As set out in my last post the backgrounds of the five future Prime Ministers in the series to date are very different. The series shows young Canadians everyone has the potential to become Prime Minister.

The Weed That Strings the Hangman’s Bag by Alan Bradley

The Weed That Strings the Hangman’s Bag by Alan Bradley – Flavia de Luce returns in the second of the series. Lying atop a tomb in the cemetery of St. Tancred’s church she contemplates what her family will think of her when she is dead (her preferred epitaph - A Maid whom there were none to praise / And very few to love). With her extraordinary hearing she hears a young woman intensely crying in another part of the churchyard.

Upon rising from the tomb she encounters Nialla, the assistant to Rupert Porson, the famed puppeteer whose Porson’s Puppets are the stars of BBC television on The Magic Kingdom. Well known to children throughout the land they still need to travel around England putting on local shows.

They have become stranded at Bishop’s Lacey as their aging Austin Eight van has broken down and they have no money for repairs.

Vicar Denwyn Richardson gallantly offers the church hall for a pair of performances that will get them the money needed for repairs and fill in the time until the local mechanic is back in the village.

Rupert has a well-developed upper torso but a crippled leg. He is also talented in designing and making his marionettes.

While chemistry is her passion Flavia’s curiosity is unbounded. She is enchanted by the puppets and the stage Rupert has built for shows.

Rupert and Nialla are given space at Culverhouse farm near the village to set up their tent during their stay at Bishop’s Lacey.

The farm is owned by Gordon and Grace Ingleby. Their lives were devastated 5 years earlier when their 5 year old son, Robin, died. He was found dead hanging from the decaying gallows used in generations past for hanging criminals. Grace Ingleby has never been able to adjust to the loss.

As Flavia makes her rounds on her bike, Gladys, she realizes that Rupert has some form of previous connection with the Ingleby family.

Never content to just observe Flavia wonders about Nialla’s outburst. She analyzes a discarded handkerchief used by Nialla and determines that Nialla is pregnant.

At the hall the stage has been erected and the first performance focused on the children of the village is a great success. Rupert is a master puppeteer.

The show is the classic Jack and the Beanstalk. The climax of the show sees the upper body of the giant crash upon the stage to great effect.

I do not know enough young children in 2016 to know if puppets are still as popular as they were 65 years ago. In 1950 television is in its infancy. (During the book the de Luces acquire their first television set.)

The evening performance sees many adults joining the children but it has a different dramatic conclusion. Rupert crashes on to the stage. He is dead.

Even in the chaos of the moment Flavia’s keen powers of observation and concentration let her see the evidence that allows her to determine the cause of death.

Inspector Hewitt is already at the performance so the investigation is begun within moments. Was it an accident or murder? Flavia knows.

Flavia continually draws upon her knowledge of chemistry as she investigates.

Flavia’s formidable Aunt Felicity visits the family. Her personality commands the house. An act of unexpected kindness by her towards Flavia relieves Flavia’s nagging unease over her relationship with her mother before her mother died.

Flavia has a growing relationship with the troubled Dogger. PTSD from World War II has left him a battered man but he has a keen intelligence that Flavia draws upon in her investigation.

Within the De Luce family a day of reckoning is at hand. Flavia’s father, drifting through life and absorbed by his stamp collection, has left the family on the verge of financial ruin. Fortunately, I have the third in the series, A Red Herring Without Mustard, to read shortly.

Early in the story I was not really caught up in the plot but it got better and better. I thought the ending moving and tragic.

****

Bradley, Alan - (2015) - The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie and A Postage Stamp Provides the Motive

Update on 9th Canadian Book Challenge

On a quiet Saskatchewan March evening with winter starting to wind down I am taking a look at my progress in the 9th Canadian Book Challenge which runs from July 1 to June 30 with the reader striving to read 13 Canadian authored books for the 10 Canadian provinces and 3 territories. The Challenge is hosted at the fine Book Mine Set blog of John Mutford. It happens that I have now read 9 books for the 9th Challenge.

They are:

     1.) No Known Grave by Maureen Jennings;

     2.) Plague by C.C. Humphreys;

     3.) Booked for Trouble by Eva Gates;

     4.) Another Margaret by Janice MacDonald;

     5.) The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley;

     6.) The Nature of the Beast by Louise Penny - Part I and Part II;

     7.) Tropéano’s Gun by John Brooke;

     8.) The Women of Skawa Island by Anthony Bidulka; and,

     9.) The Night Bell by Inger Ash Wolfe.

I have 5 more Canadian books already lined up for reading:

     1.) The Weed that Strings the Hangman's Bag by Alan Bradley;

     2.) A Red Herring Without Mustard by Alan Bradley;

     3.) The Heart of Hell by Alen Mattich;

     4.) The Scottish Banker of Surabaya by Ian Hamilton; and,

     5.) The Wail of the Wendigo by Steve Pitt (An Early Adventure
     of Pierre Trudeau).

There is a 6th I will be reading for the Challenge which is the book I am most anxious to read. It is What's Left Behind by Gail Bowen which was just released on Monday. It will be the 16th Joanne Kilbourn mystery. I will buy a copy on my next trip to a city with a bookstore. 

Of the books already read my favourite new character is 11 year old Flavia de Luce in the series by Alan Bradley. I will have read 3 of the books in the series during the current Challenge. I am reading them both for pleasure and to give me information for the article I am writing on Saskatchewan mysteries for the third volume of The Saskatchewan Literary History.

I try not to forecast the future but I am optimistic I will complete the 9th Canadian Book Challenge.