Verdict in Blood

Trevor S. Raymond is a teacher and librarian with the Peel Board of Education and editor of Canadian Holmes.

Although Joanne Kilbourn—middle-aged widow, single mother, university
teacher, television panellist, and sleuth—learns of a murder in the
first pages of this book, the investigation of the crime does not get
under way until much later. First, Kilbourn’s relationship with Alex
Kequahtooway and his nephew Eli hits a major snag; a former lover who
had moved to Toronto returns to Regina; and Joanne’s old friend Hilda
McCourt becomes unpleasantly entangled with the family of the murder
victim. All of these people and more in the story were introduced in
earlier books in this very fine series by Gail Bowen, a CBC radio
commentator and assistant professor at the University of Regina. Which
is to say that Verdict in Blood will be more enjoyable to those who have
followed the lives of Kilbourn and her children, friends, and colleagues
since they first appeared, in the 1990 novel Deadly Appearances. Verdict
in Blood, the sixth in the series, like the others, has a great sense of
place (Saskatchewan), characters we care about, humor, and a
well-developed mystery whose solution keeps us guessing.