Work for a Million

Eve Zaremba, long-time writer, founding member of Broadside, and former bookstore owner, has published two murder mysteries. The first, A Reason to Kill, appeared ten years ago. Work for a Million chronicles another romp in the lives of lesbian sleuth Helen Keremos and friends.

Primary among these friends are researcher Alex Edwards and tough guy cum showbiz agent Nate Ottoline. The setting is show business Toronto-style, as it was in A Reason to Kill. The locale is mostly Toronto, with dashes of northern Ontario and Zaremba’s beloved West Coast. The mystery centres around singer Sonia Deerfield, who is just starting to make it big, her lecherous Uncle Karl, her useless and discarded husband, the show business types who know a good thing when they see it and stick to her like glue, and a million dollars Sonia has won in that Great Canadian Cultural Event, the lottery.

Combine, mix, and watch the fun begin. Zaremba’s plot moves along nicely in this ‘80s drawing room mystery. The reader — this reader, at any rate — gets to figure out enough of who dun it to be warmly smug about it all, but also gets enough of a surprise at the end to leave the book feeling deliciously satisfied. The best of all possible worlds for a mystery addict.

The book could have been two-thirds its length, though. A good editor could have cut out much of the repetition of homespun philosophy and Relevant Points. Rather than lead her readers along by a light but binding cord, Zaremba cements them in with verbal overkill.

This notwithstanding, it’s a fun yarn. Zaremba’s female Mickey Spillane could use some fleshing out — she’s the least complex and in some ways the least interesting character in the book. Aside from that, the characters attract, repel, or intrigue in a very satisfying manner. The setting is real Toronto, not some TV fantasy place, and the plot works.

My biggest complaint about Work for a Million is that it took so long coming. Like all mystery maniacs, when a good new writer or somebody who has it all and could be very good — and Zaremba fits here — comes along, I want her to churn out one rollicking tale after another so that I and my friends won’t run out of books to devour. A mystery addict in withdrawal is a pathetic creature. I hope Eve Zaremba produces more to stave off that state.