Saskatchewan author Gail Bowen's grande dame of amateur
sleuthing, Regina-based Joanne Kilbourn, is on summer vacation
from her political science professorship at the local university.
But wherever Jo goes, as we know from Bowen's eight earlier
entertaining novels, murder and malice are always right
on her heels. So here they are dogging her sandals at the
Lawyers' Bay gated cottage community as she, her 10-year-old
adopted daughter Taylor, teenaged son Angus, his girl friend,
Leah Drache, and addle-brained family pooch, Willie, get
set to enjoy the lake. But Jo has hardly towelled off after
her first swim before Chris Altieri, one of the best and
brightest in the law firm of Falconer Shreve, is confessing
he has committed an unforgivable sin. Shortly afterwards
his MGB roars off a boat ramp into the lake, and despite
the heroic efforts of Jo and Angus to rescue him, he drowns.
So the stage is set for the fifty-five-year old widow to
launch into her ninth adventure, this time to discover what
a successful middle-aged lawyer could have done that was
so unforgivable. And of course, to resolve the resulting
train of strung out mysteries as well. There is an abortion,
for example, and the mystery of who was pregnant. And where
is the woman lawyer who has disappeared from Falcon Shreve?
And why are her colleagues apparently covering up her disappearance?
And why is head honcho, the wheel chair ridden, Zack Shreve,
so interested in Jo’s last conversation with Chris?
Then too there are the break-ins at Jo's cottage and an
internal investigation on the local police force that involves
the missing woman and two close friends of Jo’s.
Bowen has made her name as a first class mystery writer
not only because her protagonist can sort Saskatchewan wheat
from chaff but also because Jo is truly likable. In all
of her adventures, there are dogs to be walked, young kids
to be cuddled, older ones to be counselled, friendships
to be maintained and daily drudgery to be coped with. At
Lawyers' Bay, for example, Jo hovers around Taylor and her
two friends Gracie and Isobel as they giggle about boys,
discuss their parents’ peccadilloes and construct
a stone Inukshuk that opens up the history of the Northern
Inuit but also plays a major role in the resolution of the
plot. Then too, although Angus and Leah are busy managing
the local store that serves Jo as a focal point for local
history and clue-gathering gossip, they still need Jo’s
occasional help and advice. And, of course, there's older
daughter, Mieka and granddaughter Maddy. They live in Saskatoon
where their home is a haven for domesticity as Jo visits
the nearby university to uncover new facts for her current
case.
Besides the new people she meets at various times, including
some sexually intimate moments with Zack Shreve, old friends
reappear too. Sometimes they are in memories like the happy
ones of her dead husband, also a lawyer and politician,
or in the much sadder ones of her former best friend, the
artist who was Taylor's birth mom. Another old friend, Detective
Robert Hallam appears at her doorstep to tell her that her
aboriginal ex-boyfriend, Inspector Alex Kequahtooway, of
all people, may have been derelict in his duty to investigate
various aspects of the missing woman's case. A group of
the woman's friends make the allegation too, which adds
to the emotional blow Alex dealt her and her family when,
several months earlier, he left her without explanation
for another woman she now accidentally learns is an aboriginal
employee at Falconer Shreve, and not without her own problems
and mysteries as well.
But setbacks in solving mysteries or in coping with an emotional
crisis or two, even several at a time, never hold Jo back
for very long. Unfortunately, though, this time other people,
even long-time friends, do get held back, and in the most
fatal and surprising of fashions. But with the rest of the
summer ahead of them to recuperate, the resilient Jo and
her robust family, including walk-loving Willie, will undoubtedly
be relaxed and ready for their forthcoming tenth adventure.
And so will we.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER
M. Wayne Cunningham writes his reviews in Kamloops BC. Formerly an
English instructor and a senior manager in post-secondary education
in three provinces he also served as the Executive Director of the
Saskatchewan Arts Board. A member of the Crime Writers of Canada and
the Canadian Authors Association, his reviews have appeared in various
publications including a weekly column he wrote for two years for
the Kamloops Daily News. He can be reached at mw_cunningham@telus.net
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