A Sensitive Case

Trevor S. Raymond is a teacher and librarian with the Peel Board of Education and editor of Canadian Holmes.

Wright’s Inspector Charlie Salter made his debut in an award-winning
1984 novel and since has become Canada’s foremost homicide
investigator, putting Toronto firmly on the international map of crime
fiction.

Now a staff inspector, Salter, with the help of a sergeant who is about
to retire, investigates the murder of a massage therapist, whose clients
seem to have included a prominent tv personality, the president of a
university, and an abrasive, overbearing deputy minister of the Ontario
government. A sensitive case indeed.

When the two are on the job, the tale is a well-paced police
procedural, with the usual dead ends, hard work, and luck. Salter’s
personal life, as always, forms a subplot; is his marriage on the rocks?
Another subplot, concerning the sergeant, seems a bit labored, and
readers may find one or two scenes unnecessary. Still, this subplot
gives the final pages a surprising twist.

While not the best of the series, this story is competent and
entertaining enough that readers will look forward to Salter’s next
case.