The Icing on the Corpse

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

A murderous thug shoots his way from police custody in Ottawa and his
body is found soon afterwards inside an ice sculpture at the city’s
famed Winterlude. So silly is this premise that we know right away that
this is not a tale to be taken seriously, and this is confirmed by the
supposedly comical characters that help solve the mystery.

Camilla Macphee, making her second appearance in what promises to be a
series, is an activist lawyer who works for WAVE (Women Against Violence
Everywhere). She is assisted by her somewhat ditzy male office assistant
(a nice reversal of stereotypes) and a 78-year-old woman who uses a
walker. Unfortunately, as the mystery deepens, a subplot about an
upcoming wedding irritatingly slows the story’s pace and the repartee
that makes up much of the dialogue becomes tedious and ceases to amuse.
“Resist the urge to be cute,” our heroine tells her prospective
brother-in-law. Since this book provides some enjoyable diversion, one
can but hope that Ottawa writer Maffini, author of much short fiction
and one previous novel, will take her own advice in subsequent Camilla
Macphee mysteries.