Quarrel with the Foe

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

On an April morning in 1926, wealthy Toronto industrialist Digby Watt is
found lying in the gutter in front of his office with a “fatal dose of
lead in his chest.” Assigned to the case, decorated World War I
veteran Detective Sergeant Paul Shenstone is reminded of the brutal
death of a fellow soldier and boyhood friend named Horny Ingersoll.
During the Second Battle of Ypres in 1915, Horny became the victim of a
defective 18-pounder shell that was manufactured by a company owned by
Watt. Fellow soldiers vowed revenge for the death, one of “too many
soldiers let down by Canadian suppliers, cheated by compatriots who
risked nothing.” Eleven years later, the first person at the murder
scene is journalist Ivan MacAllister, one of the angry gunners at Ypres.
Suspects include Watt’s timid and oppressed son, MacAllister and
another fellow soldier, an ex-con chauffeur, a young lady friend of
Watt’s, a local labour leader, and even Paul himself.

Bradshaw opens the novel with “Curtain Raiser,” a flashback to the
1915 horror in the trenches and later inserts “Entr’acte” to
provide insight into Paul’s war experiences and his difficulty
adjusting to the peacetime world. Prohibition-era Toronto comes to life
as the author describes streets that “teemed with billboards, shop
signs, streetcar wires, square black Ford motor cars, jaywalkers” and
a traffic cop with “his English-bobby style helmet.” A low-key,
methodical, albeit whisky-loving protagonist, Paul takes police work
seriously and resists pressure from superiors to wrap up the case
prematurely.

This well-structured historical mystery introduces an appealing
protagonist, intriguing secondary characters, and a well-paced plot.
Bradshaw’s first novel set in Toronto, Death in the Age of Steam,
earned him an Arthur Ellis nomination.