A riveting mystery novel and a hot summer day on a white sandy beach go together like a hotdog and mustard.
And finding a compelling mystery to read is as easy as finding a spot on the sand. It is the most popular genre among readers in this country and several Canadian authors are masters of the art.
The Wolves of St. Peter’s (2013) by Gina Buonaguro and Janice Kirk is an intriguing tale of art, young love and betrayal, set amid the glory and venal corruption of Rome in 1508.
When young Francesco Angeli sees a golden-haired woman being pulled from the Tiber on a rainy morning, he is shocked to discover that he knows her. Francesco is a reluctant houseboy of Michelangelo, engaged in painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, and much prefers the more sophisticated company of Raphael and the artistic circle that regularly gathers at the home of Imperia, who runs a brothel in the shadow of the Vatican.
The woman in the river is one of Imperia’s ladies and Francesco finds himself drawn into a search for the truth about her death.
Meanwhile, rising waters flood the city’s streets and Romans stream into the Coliseum to escape the deluge as ravenous wolves descend from the hills to stalk the city. And Francesco follows a deepening mystery from the backstreets to the pope’s inner sanctum and gradually realizes the danger and corruption that lurks behind even the most beautiful of facades.
The plot of A Siege of Bitterns (2014) by Steve Burrows does not seem plausible or even possible, at least at first glance – a murder plot that revolves around bird watching. But the Oshawa author turns the trick in dazzling fashion.
The setting is the small town of Saltmarsh in Britain’s famed Norfolk marshes, located in the heart of the best birding region in the country. Newly appointed police inspector Domenic Jejeune, an expatriate Canadian who has won accolades for his crime-busting exploits in his adopted country, is reassigned to Saltmarsh. The problem is that he is torn between two worlds. He would much rather watch birds than be a detective.
He soon finds himself investigating the grisly murder of a renowned ecological activist, an investigation his ambitious police superintendent believes will light a blaze of welcome publicity. But she begins to doubt Jejeune and his theory that the murder involves a feud over bird watching lists.
A second murder muddies the water and Jejeune must deal with unwelcome public attention, the mistrust of colleagues and his own insecurities.
The Devil’s Making (2013) by Sean Haldane is a taut historical mystery set in British Columbia in late 1868.
Chad Hobbes, a recent Oxford graduate and former divinity student who switched to the study of law, arrives in the colonial capital to earn enough of a stake to launch him a career when he returns to London. But the boom times in Victoria ended with the gold rush and there is little work for a man with legal training who hasn’t yet taken the bar exam.
Hobbes takes a job as a constable, at the suggestion of Judge Matthew Bailey Begbie, and soon establishes a reputation for his insight and fairness. When the brutally mutilated body of Dr. McCrory is found near a seasonal camp for Tsimshian Indians, the young man’s inherent sense of justice butts up against the prejudices of the colony. The police arrest Wiladzap, a Tsimshian chief and medicine man, for the murder.
But Hobbes, noting discrepancies in the evidence, believes the Tsimshian chief is likely innocent of the crime. And as he digs deeper into the case, he discovers hidden layers of the society around him and a wealth of people engaged in mesmerism, phrenology and sexual-mystical magnetization, who might have benefitted from the doctor’s death.
These three titles and many more are available at your Okanagan Regional Library, www.orl.bc.ca.
– Peter Critchley is a reference librarian at the Vernon branch of the Okanagan Regional Library.
