April Fool

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

William Deverell’s 13th novel, written in the present tense, features
the return of Arthur Beauchamp from Trial of Passion, which won awards
in Canada and the United States. Beauchamp, described in an author’s
note as “the feisty Latin-rapping dean of West Coast criminal
lawyers,” has remarried and retired to raise goats on a small island
off the B.C. coast. He is still bothered by a case in which he
unsuccessfully defended a man who went to prison for a violent crime he
did not commit, and when the same man is now accused of murder Beauchamp
is drawn back to the drama of the criminal court. At the same time, he
is involved in another legal battle involving some environmentalists,
including his wife, who is living 50 feet up in a tree and blocking a
lumber company’s access to a logging road.

The criminal characters here have a Runyon-esque flavour to them: the
accused murderer is Nick the Owl, proud of his ranking as the seventh
best jewel thief in the world, and supporting players include
Twelve-Finger Watson and Willy the Cat, who is not to be confused with
Willy the Hook. Beauchamp is assisted in both cases by an ex–B-movie
screamer who is about to be called to the bar, although as her senior
notes, “She appears not to understand that a proper barrister
doesn’t dye her hair green and run off to join a forest sit-in.”
Some zany islanders round out the cast.

Witty dialogue, a well-paced tale, an evocative sense of place, and
courtroom scenes that are both suspenseful and funny make this novel an
engaging and entertaining read.