The Carpet King

Matt Hartman is a freelance editor and cataloguer, running Hartman Cataloguing, Editing and Indexing Services.

It takes Ward about a third of his book to get going, but when he
finally does (with a triple murder), he tells a mean story about
restoration architecture, strippers, and drug smuggling, all set in a
seedy part of Toronto, with excursions into the Ontario countryside.

Hal Sebastian is an architect who specializes in restoration projects
and is quite content with small, unspectacular commissions. His wife,
Kate, is struggling to move from her lower-middle-class existence, and
decides to give her husband a definite push upward. She starts a
relationship with the CEO of Midland Development Corporation, owners of
the old Vanguard Building. Through her efforts, Hal wins the competition
to restore the building. The trouble is that the magnate, Alistair
Crawford, is not what he purports to be, nor (we are to discover) is
Kate a model of stability.

Interwoven with this plot are the murders of striptease dancers who
work at the Doyle Hotel in the Vanguard Building. The Doyle’s owner,
71-year-old Carny Danial, has for years refused to close his hotel and
vacate the Vanguard. His intransigence has meant that renovations
can’t begin and has cost Midland much money. The brutal murders focus
attention on the Doyle and, when Danial is fatally injured attempting to
catch the killer, allow the developers an acceptable reason to close the
hotel. When Hal and his beautiful assistant discover which end is up,
things begin to get serious, leading to a satisfying dénouement in
which everybody gets exactly what he or she deserves.

Ward’s first thriller benefits from his scriptwriting experience; not
much is wasted. Once warmed up, the plot moves at a good clip. The
characters are about as developed as is necessary for the genre, and the
requisite blood and gore, semi-steamy sex, and suspense all keep things
interesting. Not a bad choice for the public library.