The Ogopogo Affair

Mary Stevens is a teacher-librarian in Kitchener.

The Ogopogo Affair is based on an article first published in Mike Shayne
Mystery Magazine in October 1984 and a compilation of news reports,
photographs, and correspondence between the author and people who have
reported sightings of Ogopogo.

The story, an example of the hard-boiled school of detective fiction,
features the “good” embodied in ex-Mountie Stuart Blaze, who walks
“tall and proud, with a confidence that [comes] of knowing precisely
where he [stands] in a world of conflict between good and evil men.”
This paragon and his companion Connie Wells, also an ex-Mountie, have
been asked to solve the mystery of the deaths of three young indigenous
women whose crushed, naked bodies were marked by the coils of what
inhabitants of Kelowna fear is N’Ha-a-itk, Okanagan Lake’s version
of the Loch Ness monster.

Stereotypes abound. Wells is in hot pursuit of Blaze, whose manly
virtue glows as “the epitome of everything bright and beautiful.”
The eccentric sidekick, “Ghost” Goetze, privy to all information,
appears and vanishes like a will-o’-the-wisp. Although Blaze
“flinches” at the prejudice of both an RCMP constable and a snake
handler, their offensive opinions go unchallenged. Indeed, the author
slips badly when a character is referred to as a “wounded redskin.”

Although the archival material and correspondence are somewhat
interesting, this book is not recommended because of its offensive
stereotyping and heavy-handed prose.