Not a Trace

Dave Jenkinson is a professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Manitoba and the author of the “Portraits” section of Emergency Librarian.

These latest volumes in the Chloe and Levesque Mystery series show once
again why McClintock is a five-time winner of the Arthur Ellis Award for
best juvenile mystery. Consistently, her stories are intricately plotted
while each book’s real and red-herring clues to the criminal’s
identity lead readers in different directions. The motivations for the
books’ crimes (usually murder) are always rooted in basic human
emotions, like jealousy or twisted love.

No Escape and Not a Trace both contain First Nations characters who
find themselves the objects of the majority culture’s prejudice. In
the former title, Caleb Darke, a high-school dropout now in his late
20s, has just served six years of an eight-year prison term, followed by
two years in which he could not approach the victim of his aggravated
assault—his girlfriend, Terri Tyson, the daughter of an affluent East
Hastings family. Apparently, Caleb’s violent behaviour, which left
Terri mute, brain-damaged, and in a wheelchair, was provoked by her
decision to discontinue their relationship. While the rest of the town,
led by Terri’s father and older brother, seemingly want to drive the
returned Caleb away, Chloe finds herself sympathetically drawn to this
young Native man because he had never admitted guilt, an action that
would have led to early parole. What separates No Escape from the
series’ earlier books is that Chloe’s younger sister, Phoebe, plays
a larger role, having become the girlfriend of Caleb’s younger
brother, Kyle. Ultimately, through Chloe’s actions, readers discover
who actually assaulted Terri and learn that the attack’s motivation
resided in an earlier death that had been ruled accidental but was
really murder.

Not a Trace begins just two months after No Escape. Levesque, Chloe’s
police chief stepfather, having recovered from a bullet wound he
suffered in No Escape, is about to take his wife on a long overdue
vacation/honeymoon. However, their departure is delayed when a local
Indian band, represented by the activist David Mitchell, engages in
civil disobedience to protest the proposed establishment of a golf
course on a traditional Native burial ground. The situation appears to
have escalated significantly when Trevor Blake, the golf course’s
builder, is found bludgeoned to death. In addition to the obvious
suspect, David Mitchell, McClintock provides others, including the
victim’s ex-wife Amanda, Matt Solnicki who is Amanda’s new suitor,
and Fletcher Blake, Trevor’s wheelchair-bound younger brother who had
courted Amanda prior to Trevor’s marrying her.

As in the other books, Chloe and her stepfather continue to joust
verbally, but Chloe can be seen softening toward Levesque though she has
yet to call him Dad. While the murderer’s identity is not necessarily
a surprise, the individual’s motivation is. The book’s conclusion
suggests a new locale for the next mystery as Chloe is to stay in
Montreal with her older sister, Brynn, while her parents honeymoon. Both
books are highly recommended.