Riviera Blues

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

The news is mixed for fans of Crang, the criminal-lawyer/sleuth created
by long-time chronicler of the Canadian legal scene Jack Batten. This
reviewer found Crang’s 1989 second outing, Straight No Chaser, almost
consistently a delight; alas, the delights of this third mystery are
fewer and far apart.

Crang and his movie-reviewer girlfriend are off to the south of France
(where movie-reviewer Batten recently spent a few months), but the
change of scenery does not make for a better tale, and little advantage
is taken of the potential of a film festival background. One by one, the
other five major characters, all of whom we first met in Toronto, arrive
in France; there seems little reason to use the Riviera locale at all.
The plot, which involves a computer disk that everyone wants, is thin,
and there is no murder until the 26th of the 34 short chapters, by which
time it is too late to create much excitement. Sometimes fun—there is
a delightful encounter between Crang and a burglar in Toronto—but
burdened with some lengthy, uninspired conversations that advance things
very little, Batten’s latest effort is mildly diverting and quickly
forgotten.