Honour Among Men

Darleen R. Golke is a high-school teacher-librarian in Abbotsford, B.C.

The fifth Inspector Green mystery finds Mike Green chafing at dealing
with administrative matters when all “he’d ever wanted to do was
track down the tormenters and bring them to account.” When he spots
flashing red lights, he stops at a site—cordoned off by yellow police
tape—where an unidentified woman’s body lies. The victim is wearing
a military jacket and among her effects investigators find a 1993 Medal
of Bravery that was awarded to Corporal Ian MacDonald. Green quickly
becomes embroiled in the tangled investigation.

Halifax Sergeant McGrath identifies Ottawa’s Jane Doe as the
girlfriend of (unsolved) murder victim Danny Oliver, a former soldier
who along with Ian MacDonald was posted to the Canadian Forces in
Croatia. “All things connect to Yugoslavia,” Green concludes.
“Ian’s suicide, Oliver’s murder, and Patricia’s murder.
Something happened over there.” The unfolding evidence will lead
detectives to CFB Petawawa and Major “Hammer” Hamm, and Green to
Halifax, an Annapolis Royal farm, a ritzy Ottawa condo, and finally a
shootout deep in the Gatineau Hills.

Winner of the 2005 Arthur Ellis Award for Best Crime Novel for Fifth
Son, Fradkin continues the series featuring “exasperating Ottawa
Police Inspector Green whose love of the hunt often interferes with
family, friends, and police protocol.” Fradkin unravels the threads of
MacDonald’s wartime agony in a series of diary excerpts scattered
throughout the narrative. The first entry is dated November 2, 1992,
before his enlistment; his agonizing final entry is dated September 10,
1995.