John McFetridge in my home and native city / Ville de mes aïeux

I'd like John McFetridge's Black Rock even if I were not in it, in the person of an enterprising police photographer named Rozovsky, who appears to have a nice little business going on the side. (This proves that McFetridge borrowed nothing but my name. For me, initiative means dragging myself out of bed early enough in the afternoon to have lunch before I have dinner [we called it supper back home in Montreal].)

What I like about Black Rock is that even though I lived in Montreal at the time of the book's setting and so did McFetridge, my Montreal was not his, and neither of our Montreals was that of the events that made headlines at the time and form the background to the novel's real action.

Those events are the FLQ terrorist bombings of 1970, the investigation of which punctuate the life and work of a young police officer named Eddie Dougherty as her pursues his real professional interest: the murders of a string of young women. (Read a newspaper clipping about the killings that sparked the novel at McFetridge's blog.)

So, while bombs go off downtown and in Westmount and Old Montreal,  the action also takes Dougherty to crowded apartments off the Main and to bars in Point St. Charles, a local boy returning to his turf, this time as a cop seeking the killer of a murdered woman:

"They walked half a block to Dougherty's squad car, and Carpentier said, `They know you.' 

"`Yeah.' 

"`But you're not one of them?' 

"`English can be pure laine, too."

The past can be a foreign country, but so can one's own country. (For another crime-fictionalized look Canada's October Crisis, see Giles Blunt's novel The Delicate Storm.)

© Peter Rozovsky 2014

Books to read on an island: The campaign for Vanda

Ever wonder what books you'd want should you find yourself on an antipodean island? Vanda Symon has gone you one better: She lives on an antipodean island, and, while an existence amid all that lamb and kiwi fruit strikes me as tantalizingly close to paradise, Vanda has a complaint: Too few books.

Vanda, herself a crime novelist, has asked me to recommend crime books that might be hard for her to find otherwise. She's been a charming correspondent and the winner of a Detectives Beyond Borders contest, so how could I refuse? I'll begin with an offering from my own native country: three Canadian crime novelists whose work I've read and enjoyed recently. Then I'll ask you for some suggestions.

Giles Blunt portrays small-city humor and hopelessness as well as any American or Swede you’d care to name, though with sensitivity to local sounds and sights. Take him to a city, and he does just as well, keeping the action moving fast at all times. Even when his characters sit still, they are never really at rest. As a bonus, his novel The Delicate Storm offers an unusually detailed first-person look at a tumultuous period in recent Canadian history. (Read more about Giles Blunt here and here.)

Howard Engel's Memory Book recounts its protagonist's struggles both to solve a murder and to overcome a neurological condition that has robbed him of his ability to read. Think that's easy? Engel's Benny Cooperman can't read what he has written, and he can't follow street signs, read reports or make much sense of the visual world. Then reflect that Engel himself struggled with the affliction, alexia sine agraphia, while writing the book. The novel comes with an afterword by the neurologist Oliver Sacks. If possible, get the Canadian edition from Penguin for its ingenious cover, which brilliantly captures Cooperman's puzzling, frustrating predicament. (Read more about Howard Engel here.)

John McFetridge is a guy you'll have heard from and read about on this blog in recent days. His satirical edge and sympathetic view of his city and protagonists bring his novels to rich, vivid life. Read Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere and Dirty Sweet, and see why people will one day talk about McFetridge's Toronto the way they talk about Raymond Chandler's Los Angeles. (Read the Detectives Beyond Borders interview with John McFetridge here.)

Won't you help? What other crime books should Vanda Symon be reading?

© Peter Rozovsky 2008

Slow authors and fast authors

I've recently finished one crime novel by the queen of slow buildups and started another by a writer who can't sit still. The slow writer is Fred Vargas, apt to open a novel with her protagonist stirred by a broken furnace to far-flung contemplation of Arctic winds. The fast one is Giles Blunt, who almost never lets the narrative sit still without introducing a new character or plot wrinkle and who is loath to break up dialogue with reactions.

Two fine crime writers, two distinct ways of telling a story, each of which goes a long way to creating a special texture. How about you, Detectives Beyond Borders readers? Do you have a preference for slow buildups? For relentless action? What does each add to a story? And who are your favorite practitioners of each?

"The little lakeside house with its woodstove and angular rooms was cosy, comfortable. And the location out on Madonna Road ensured that — much of the time, at least — it was blessedly quiet. But tonight the quiet irritated him. He missed the sound of Catherine fussing with her plants, playing Bach on the stereo, chatting to him about photography, about her students, about anything at all, really."

Giles Blunt, Black Fly Season

© Peter Rozovsky 2008

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A crime story that hit close to home, a question for readers

I started Giles Blunt's The Delicate Storm ten days ago, eager to see how Blunt wrote about Quebec's October Crisis of 1970, a period through which I lived. It transpires that he wrote about it with near-journalistic accuracy.

Though the novel's setting is contemporary (it was published in 2003), its crimes have their roots in 1970. Blunt's narrative of that time is a roman à clef . Pierre Laporte, the federal labor minister murdered by the Front de libération du Québec (FLQ), becomes in The Delicate Storm a provincial politician named Raoul Duquette. James Cross, the British trade commissioner kidnapped by the FLQ, becomes a British consul named Stuart Hawthorne, though Blunt had the clever idea of making Hawthorne younger than Cross, so he can come back thirty years after the fact, still vigorous, to talk about his kidnapping.

Other events are similarly referred to, thinly disguised by name changes and, if my memory serves me well, I went to summer camp with a member of one family referred to by its real name in the novel.

How about you, readers? What fictional accounts have you read of periods or events that you experienced firsthand? How did you feel reading such accounts?

© Peter Rozovsky 2008

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You can take the novelist out of TV, but can you take TV out of the novelist? (A note on Giles Blunt)

The jacket biography on Giles Blunt's The Delicate Storm says Blunt spent twenty years writing for television. Coincidentally, I found a blog post today that offers a harsh assessment of screenwriters who try to write novels:

"Many of them are not novelists. Now there are some excellent screenwriters who are also good authors, but making the transition from one medium to (the) other does not usually work.

"The agent, Mary Evans says, `Oftentimes, you shudder when a screenwriter has written a manuscript. Because they tend to be strong with dialogue but crappy with context … Screenwriters are attracted to novel writing because they can let their freak flag fly and just write what they want, but the truly talented novelist-slash-screenwriter is very rare.'"

None of this applies to Giles Blunt. For one thing, The Delicate Storm does an excellent job on mood and setting, which must be at least part of what Mary Evans means by context.

Still, two features of the novel remind me of television, and I suspect that at least one reflects Blunt's TV experience. Broadly speaking, the book is full of incident and potential subplots. More specifically, at least three dialogue passages are just that: all, or almost all, dialogue, with little or no reaction, as if they were lines from a script.

In one, protagonist John Cardinal, a local police officer, snaps at a young-looking Canadian intelligence officer named Squier who has become involved in a murder case. Here's part of the scene:

"You're with CSIS?"

"Canadian Security Intelligence Service," Musgrave said.

"I know who they are, thanks."

"That's right. I've been with them five years."

"They must have hired you when you were nine." Cardinal sat down in a sky-blue chair that creaked like a new show. He turned to Musgrave. "What's the deal here?"

"I'll let him tell you."

"Squier opened his briefcase and set a silvery laptop on the desk ..."

Look what happens here. Or rather, look what doesn't happen. Cardinal has insulted Squier, and Blunt indicates no reaction on Squier's part whatsoever, not even to say "Squier showed no reaction."

Elsewhere, Cardinal's colleague clashes so bitterly with a coroner that the two seem on the verge of at least a shouting match. A sarcastic remark from the coroner proceeds not to reaction on either his of the officer's part, but rather to some small bit of action (a police photographer taking picture of a shoe) before returning to coroner and officer at work, as if they had never argued.

The pattern repeats itself at least once more in the novel, which is neither good in itself nor bad. But it does contribute to the novel's distinctive texture, a texture I'd guess owes something to the author's other writing career.

© Peter Rozovsky 2008

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Domestic intelligence (Giles Blunt, The Delicate Storm, and a question for readers)

I posted a few days ago about The Delicate Storm by Giles Blunt, noting this Canadian author's ability to chart the humor and hopelessness of small-town life "as well as any American or Swede you’d care to name."

I've since noticed a parallel with one Swede in particular: Henning Mankell. Like that author's White Lioness and, especially, Firewall, The Delicate Storm rather nicely blends small-town life with thriller-like elements of international crime (in this case, the elements involve terrorism of the domestic variety, too.)

This leads to the evening's question for readers: What other novels and stories pull off a similar blend of small-town investigation and international terrorism or financial crime? Think of this as the Daniel Woodrell-meets-John Le Carré question.

© Peter Rozovsky 2008

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Giles Blunt
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Crime fiction close to home and a question for readers

The latest border I’ve crossed brings me to my native land: Canada, for The Delicate Storm by Giles Blunt. My early impression is favorable. The man can portray small-city humor and hopelessness as well as any American or Swede you’d care to name.

But I’ve also noticed familiar touches: names that reflect Canada’s Anglophone and Francophone mix (Ivan Bergeron, Lisa Delorme), and the jacket’s reference to an investigation that leads back three decades to Quebec terrorists. I lived through that period; I’ll be interested to see how Blunt handles it.

And now, readers, your question: How do you feel about crime fiction set in and around places where you have lived? Examples, please!

© Peter Rozovsky 2008

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Giles Blunt
Canadian crime fiction