Memories Are Murder: A Belle Palmer Mystery.

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

This is the latest in the mystery series featuring Belle Palmer, the Sudbury real estate agent with a penchant for nosing out trouble. Her former high school boyfriend has died under suspicious circumstances in the bush while taking water samples for his Ministry of the Environment job. His house guest, in turn, is nearly murdered when he begins to investigate, and Belle, also, is targeted for murder when she gets involved. In addition to this mayhem, while on the run by kayak and portage, Belle is called upon to act as midwife to her part-time employee, who gives birth in the forest.

The plot is event-packed and fast-paced with many twists and turns and several complications, but it also has a fully developed emotional component. Written in the third person from Belle’s point of view, the reader is privy to her thought processes as she tries to unravel the various clues, and empathizes with the dilemmas and emotional traumas she experiences. The centrality of the conservation of natural resources, global warming, and industrial pollution renders the plot relevant and contemporary.

Intriguing as the plot is, characterization drives this novel. Allin’s characters are quintessential archetypes with no hint of caricature. She writes so compellingly about people that just a few descriptors create a vivid portrait of each individual—their personality as well as physical attributes. Her thumbnail description of a high school vice-principal nails the type perfectly.

This is a well-crafted murder mystery with great characters, traditional red herrings, and a believable resolution. There is some awkward phrasing and the odd non sequitur, but these are more than compensated for by evocative descriptions of nature, and hundreds of spot-on similes and metaphors appropriate to the bush setting. The author’s love and respect for the natural beauties of northern Ontario shine through the meticulous attention to detail and concentration on the inviolability of environment. The only somewhat jarring note is the constant, relentless cheerleading for alternative sexual lifetyles, which are referred to on practically every page.