The Bolshevik's Revenge: A Sam Klein Mystery

Michael Payne is head of the Research and Publications Program at the
Historic Sites and Archives Service, Alberta Community Development, and
the coauthor of A Narrative History of Fort Dunvegan.

One of the fastest-growing genres of detective fiction these days is the
“historical” mystery. No longer are such books confined to featuring
crime-solving medieval monks and Victorian policemen: Allan Levine has
added an early 20th-century Winnipeg private detective to the list of
historical characters who solve mysteries. This book is the third novel
in an engaging series that features Sam Klein, a principled—but not
overly successful—detective for hire.

Levine is a historian and his expert knowledge of social, economic, and
political conditions in Winnipeg in 1919 is reflected throughout the
book. By the end of the first chapter alone, readers know what a
bricklayer earned, the cost of houses and apartments, and the impact of
World War I on food prices. This is all essential background for
explaining the causes of the Winnipeg General Strike, which was one of
the critical turning points in 20th-century Canadian history and the
apparent cause of the murder Klein investigates. During the course of
the investigation, readers will learn about anarchist philosophy,
eugenics, police procedures in Winnipeg’s Red Light district, and the
General Strike itself.

In reviewing detective fiction, you should never reveal the mystery,
but in this case solving the mystery is secondary to establishing the
historical context of events. The book is a puzzle not so much about who
killed Bill Simon, a Winnipeg businessman and the leading opponent of
the strike, as about why he was killed, and the plot offers some
interesting twists and turns on that subject. Suspects include Klein’s
radical sister and her anarchist lover, a menacing thug hired by Simon
himself, and several others Simon hurt on his rise to the top of
Winnipeg’s business community. But the key to the mystery is motive,
and that motive is rooted in one of the darker chapters of 20th-century
history.