Dear Neighbor: A Novel

Carolyn Hlus was a lecturer in English literature at the University of Alberta, Edmonton.

The murder mystery Dear Neighbor contains the stuff of a one-night-stand of hair-raising bedtime reading. The action is fast and the characters, although hardly admirable, vivid. What is perhaps most interesting about this book is that it is a translation into English of work from Québécois popular fiction. The French original, Chere voisine, received Le Prix Robert-Cliche, an award given annually by Le Salon du Livre de Québec to the author of a first Québécois novel; however, this novel lacks the harsh symbolism and penetrating surrealism generally associated with more serious Québécois literature.

The plot opens with a murder: a wife and mother is strangled and sexually mutilated. The murderer is immediately revealed: Roland, who seems to be a prisoner of his wheelchair, has a sadistic interest in dark-eyed petits blonds. The residents in that quarter of Quebec City fall into paranoia. The story focuses on the tenants of the apartment block in which Roland lives. Louise, a waitress who has an unnatural love for cats, and Victor, a teacher possessed by an irrational drive to marry Louise, befriend Roland. Complication after complication occurs and the murderer, rather murderers, remain at large. The strange conclusion leaves the reader perplexed and questioning the morality of an unpunished criminal.