Blood Vessel

Chris Redmond is the director of internal communications at the
University of Waterloo and author of A Sherlock Holmes Handbook.

Murder by fugu fish—not your average weapon, and one that clearly
defines the background for this second Dan Rudnicki mystery, sequel to
Flesh Wound (1991). Events take place mostly aboard the cruise ship Sea
Jewel out of Vancouver, but the deceased, the suspects, and many of the
bit players are Japanese (or, in a couple of cases, Japanese-Canadian).
To eastern Canadian readers, such an environment is culturally as well
as literally foreign; to Vancouverites, one begins to suspect, it’s
authentic local color.

Rudnicki, security consultant and part-time lecturer, has the personal
complications that are now required for first-person narrators of
mysteries. In his case, two teenage daughters are his sole
responsibility since the unsolved death of his wife—an event recounted
in Flesh Wound, one presumes, and frequently alluded to but not clearly
explained in this volume. He’s funny (if occasionally a little
strained) and less neurotic than Benny Cooperman. It’s the 1990s, all
right: the detective is a single parent, every tangible asset in sight
is owned by a Japanese tycoon, and there’s an environmental terrorist
aboard for extra excitement.

This clearly written and literate mystery contains one very understated
sex scene and not much blood. Best of all, the characters seem real,
with the possible exception of the Japanese tycoon’s film-star wife,
who’s well outside this reviewer’s range of experience. Foreign in
all senses.