Foul Deeds: A Rosalind Mystery.

Lisa Arsenault is a high-school English teacher who is involved in
several ministry campaigns to increase literacy.

Two plots are interwoven in this mystery featuring Rosalind, a criminologist, and her associate, McBride, a private investigator. Rosalind’s hobby and passion is theatre and she is helping with a local production of Hamlet (hence the book’s title) as well as pursuing her day job.

McBride is discovered in a parking lot, beaten and left to die, and the contact he had planned to meet has similarly been beaten and left for dead across town. McBride had received an anonymous phone call regarding the sale of Nova Scotia water to international consortiums. His client’s father, Peter King, now deceased, had been instrumental in preventing the deal and diverting funds back to Canadian interests. The contact had implied a vendetta against King and hinted at murder.

The attack on McBride triggers an investigation by the partners that reaches to the highest levels of Nova Scotia politics. Concurrently, the progress of Hamlet in rehearsal mirrors the real-life action. Interpersonal relations in both play and reality become enmeshed with power and politics. Quick perusal of another play about to go into rehearsals, Fool for Love, provides yet anther connection for Rosalind and enables her to break the case. The forbidden love in that play echoes the same situation between potential suspects in the Nova Scotia murder case and suggests another motive for the murder of King, the subsequent cover-up, and the attack on McBride and others.

This is an interesting read for mystery aficionados. It starts out rather slowly but builds to a satisfying crescendo (much like a play). Rosalind refers to her brain being on fire when she makes her ultimate deductions and claims that “all her worlds were colliding” with the sudden illumination that leads to the surprise ending. The pace of the prose actually speeds up and becomes tighter as the plot accelerates. This is particularly important as the characters are rather thinly drawn. Dialogue rings true, but there is little, with the exception of some of the commentary on the plays, in the way of figurative language—descriptions tend to be perfunctory.