Murder on the Run

Matt Hartman is a freelance editor and cataloguer, running Hartman Cataloguing, Editing and Indexing Services.

Medora Sale’s newest John Sanders mystery, Murder on the Run, involves a psychotic rapist-murderer, a crooked politician, drug smugglers and other misfits, all of whom cavort in Metro Toronto, enmeshed in at least three discernable plots.

Before Sanders and his partner, Dubinsky, unravel the mystery, three young women are murdered, a schoolgirl is kidnapped, and the detective’s ex-girlfriend dramatically re-enters his life.

Sale mixes and matches these ingredients; she extends the plots until very near the end when in a denouement — unfortunately rough around the edges — the pieces fit uneasily together.

The detective story genre depends for much of its effect upon balance and pacing — balance between the probable and improbable, and pacing of the action of the characters. Sale seems to have forgotten both of these, particularly when the characters seem to get in each other’s way. Her writing appears to be stilted and forced; the characters ill-defined by dialogue. This is a stumbling sort of novel, with uncertain movement from set piece to set piece.