No Cherubs for Melanie: An Inspector Bliss Mystery

Henry G. MacLeod teaches sociology at both Trent University and the
University of Waterloo.

James Hawkins’s debut novel, Missing: Presumed Dead, introduced
detective David Bliss and was nominated for the Arthur Ellis Award for
Best First Canadian Crime Novel. No Cherubs for Melanie is his third
Bliss novel. Hawkins, a retired U.K. police commander, was also a senior
lecturer in criminal law before settling in Canada.

A murder and its connection to his first child-fatality case are used
to lure Detective Inspector Bliss back to work. On medical leave for
post-traumatic stress syndrome, accentuated by depression brought on by
his recent divorce after a 25-year marriage, Bliss is dealing with a
severe life crisis.

The murder of wealthy restaurateur Martin Gordonstone takes Bliss back
more than 20 years to his investigation of the accidental drowning of
Gordonstone’s six-year-old daughter Melanie. The possibility of sexual
abuse left Bliss suspicious that the father might have had a role in the
child’s death. An inexperienced rookie at the time, Bliss felt bullied
by Gordonstone into supporting a verdict of accidental death. The murder
gives Bliss a chance to revisit the past and to alleviate his guilt.

Returning to work, Bliss soon has a third suspicious death to
investigate: the suicide of Gordonstone’s wife 10 years earlier. The
discovery that the case file on Betty-Ann’s death is missing places
Bliss on a collusion course with Superintendent Edwards, the
investigating officer in the suicide. Ordered off the case and forced to
take an unauthorized leave, Bliss departs from London, England, for
Northern Ontario to interview the surviving daughter, Margaret.

The plot is well crafted. Canadian readers will enjoy the description
of Bliss “roughing it in the bush.” Bliss’s lawyer daughter
Samantha has a larger part in the book and her evolving romance with her
father’s superior officer, Peter Bryan, as they too arrive in the
wilds of Ontario, keeps the story interesting. At the core of the novel
is Bliss’s journey of self-discovery as he wrestles with guilt and
loss and searches for a killer.