The Delicate Story

Michael Payne is head of the Research and Publications Program at the
Historic Sites and Archives Service, Alberta Community Development, and
the co-author of A Narrative History of Fort Dunvegan.

This is the second novel by Giles Blunt featuring John Cardinal, a
detective working in the northern Ontario community of Algonquin Bay, a
scarcely fictionalized version of Blunt’s own hometown of North Bay.
The first of the Cardinal novels, Forty Words for Sorrow (1991), was a
very successful blending of the mystery and police procedural genres,
and this new book is equally accomplished. Blunt has previously worked
as a scriptwriter for a number of well-known television series, and this
book reflects this experience.

As with many television police shows, several subplots complicate the
main storyline. One involves an amiable but utterly inept bank robber
known as the Wudky, or WDC, short for the World’s Dumbest Criminal.
Another involves an obsessive RCMP constable with a secret, and a third
the complicated politics involved when different police and security
forces have to co-operate. All eventually play a role in solving the
main case of a supposed American ice fisherman whose body is partially
eaten by bears—but not before some unknown killer had dispatched him.
Determining who the victim was and why he met such an untimely end leads
to a satisfyingly complex investigation involving lots of forensic and
investigative activity and a solid dose of Canadian history. The victim
and his killer have ties that go back to one of the most dramatic
episodes in Canadian politics, but to reveal more would spoil the story.
Suffice it to say, the conclusion of the book has the kind of ambiguity
for which a political mystery seems to call.

Blunt has assembled a solid cast of supporting characters, including a
female detective, Lise Delorme, who seems poised to play a larger role
in future books on crime in Algonquin Bay. John Cardinal is an
interesting lead character: decent but with a large skeleton in his
closet that threatens to escape and ruin his career. He also has the
kind of complicated personal life that is de rigueur in modern police
novels: an estranged daughter, a depressed wife, and an ailing and
elderly father. Several of these issues are resolved in this book, but
enough loose ends remain that a third book is ably foreshadowed.