The Rossiter File: An Inspector Stride Mystery

Michael Payne is the City of Edmonton archivist and the co-author of A
Narrative History of Fort Dunvegan.

The field of historical detective fiction is a crowded place these days.
Many feature formulaic plots and a vicarious trip through the author’s
research notes. At their best, however, such books combine a satisfying
story with an engrossing portrayal of unusual historical situations.
This second book in a series featuring Inspector Eric Stride of the
Newfoundland Constabulary is an excellent example of the genre.

To begin with, Curran has chosen a fascinating setting for his
story—and one that he obviously knows well. Newfoundland in 1947 was
just emerging from the effects of World War II, and Newfoundlanders were
increasingly caught up in the complex political debate that led to union
with Canada in 1949. These circumstances form part of the background to
the story, but the mystery is really rooted in an earlier period of
Newfoundland’s history when powerful merchant families dominated the
colony’s political, economic, and social life. Ordinary people were
just one more resource to exploit, and issues of social deference, class
tension, and power are central to this book.

However, the book is more than just a history lesson dressed up as a
detective story. Inspector Stride is an engaging character with a past
that underscores the occasionally thin line between enforcing the law
and breaking it. His personal life is sufficiently unsettled to suggest
that his personality and circumstances can continue to evolve through
future novels. His partner, Harry Phelan, is an effective counterpoise
to Stride, without straining the hackneyed “opposites attract”
formula of much detective fiction. In many ways, the best part of the
book is the well-drawn collection of supporting characters—bar owners,
boarding-house residents, fellow cops, and the members of the St.
John’s elite whom Stride has to extract information from and about.

Readers who like a detective novel that actually involves
old-fashioned detection will enjoy this one. There is no battle of wits
here between detective and criminal or painstaking forensics to drive
the plot. Instead the homicide requires Stride to make sense of many
apparently disconnected strands of information in order to determine
both the who and the why behind what seems initially to be a motiveless
murder.