Death Over Montreal

William Blackburn is a professor of English at the University of
Calgary.

Immigrants coming from Scotland in the 1840s, Jamie Douglas and his parents arrive in Lower Canada to find Montreal in the grip of cholera. His father, a weak and amiable dreamer, is soon bilked of their savings and dies of cholera. Jamie’s mother seeks work at the hospital and soon falls sick herself. Jamie, who has made the acquaintance of the naturopath Dr. Ayres, himself saves his mother’s life with the techniques he has learned, and he and his mother face life in the new land together.

Like the other books in the Kids Canada series this one has much to recommend it. There is a good deal of action — as one would expect in the tale of an adolescent flung into a cholera epidemic thousands of miles from home. Vocabulary and sentence structure are simple, but never simplistic, and the novel delicately touches on serious matters: death, self-reliance, the conflict of good and evil. The suspended ending is a sophisticated touch: the novel’s villain is left alive at the end; Jamie’s future is uncertain (will he go on to study medicine, or not? And will he ever find Karen McLeod again?). All in all, a deft and well-made little book that ought certainly to appeal to young adolescents.