Ice Lake

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.

This novel follows the career of Montreal police detective Emile
Cinq-Mars, first introduced in Farrow’s earlier novel, City of Ice
(1999). In some respects, the real central character is Montreal
itself—its distinctive winters and society. A close association
between Montreal, winter, and death runs throughout this police
procedural.

The book opens with a body being found in an ice fishing hut, but the
circumstances of this death are much more complicated than they first
appear. Before long the plot incorporates the medical
research/pharmaceutical industry in Montreal, corporate skulduggery,
Mohawk Warriors, HIV/AIDS patients, and some extremely unpleasant
criminals. It is a very complicated plot with multiple twists and a
large cast of characters who rarely are what they seem. Everyone has
secrets, and sorting out who is a misguided dupe, who seems honest or
helpful but is not, and who is simply evil drives the plot.

As is so common with police procedurals today, Cinq-Mars and his
partner Bill Mathers have complicated personal and professional lives.
Mathers’s wife wants him to quit police work, and his partnership with
Cinq-Mars is growing strained. For his part, Cinq-Mars is dealing with a
number of midlife crises all at once. Health issues may end his police
career and he is increasingly at odds with his colleagues and superiors,
who see Cinq-Mars as an anachronism while resenting his celebrity cop
status.

Cinq-Mars is portrayed throughout both novels as having a particularly
Catholic approach to crime. He understands moral failing and the power
of redemption, while recognizing that solving crimes is not the same as
curing society. In the end, the book’s denouement neatly ties up the
different threads of the initial mystery of the body in the ice fishing
hut, while making it clear this result is ambiguous at best. Individual
criminals pay for their sins, but the larger societal evils that
underlie their crimes remain untouched.