Undertow: An Inspector Stride Mystery

R. Gordon Moyles is professor emeritus of English at the University of
Alberta, the co-author of Imperial Dreams and Colonial Realities:
British Views of Canada, 1880–1914, and the author of The Salvation
Army and the Public.

The essential requirements of good detective fiction are as follows: a
Sherlock Holmes type of sleuth, who is witty and urbane and has a keen
investigative mind; a trusty Watson-like assistant; a range of credible
possibilities as to suspects, with many fascinating false turns; and an
environment not only suitable to the murder but interesting in its own
right.

Judged by these criteria, Undertow is a very satisfying mystery novel.
Inspector Eric Stride of the Newfoundland Constabulary is ideally suited
to his calling, though with a roving eye and sometimes a little blind to
the truth; Detective Sergeant Harry Phelan, who has an Irish sense of
humor, is the perfect foil. Both characters are subtly portrayed and
have rounded personalities. The crime investigation, full of twists and
turns, is focused on the murder of a woman in St. John’s in 1947 and
the unsolved murder of an American soldier four years earlier. Curran
perfectly captures the city’s ambience—against the larger backdrop
of postwar Newfoundland— in this fine piece of suspenseful fiction.