LIGHTNING STRIKES the SILENCE: A Lane Winslow Mystery.

 Iona Whishaw. LIGHTNING STRIKES the SILENCE. TouchWood, 2024.

An explosion above King's Cove. Lane Winslow and neighbours investigate and find a badly injured child. They carry her down and take her to hospital. The next day Lane goes back and finds the girl's dead mother. Later, goes back and finds a cabin where they have been living. For how long? Seven years? At the same time as the explosion, the jewellery store in Nelson is burgled and the jeweller murdered. Lane's investigations turn up that both, all 3 victims, have the same last name.

For me, there is too much coincidence in this plot. And with flashbacks to WW I and 1939, I felt more manipulated by being fed info rather than carried along by the detectives and the unfolding plot. Also felt suspicious how a grocer living near Nelson would not have recognized the only local jeweller who he must have seen regularly for many years. 

I like the characters, Lane, Darling, Ames, Terrill, and the neighbours, and the way children are integral to the story and its beautiful setting. Also the way the story incorporates more correct information about the Japanese-Canadian internment camps. 

The HUMOUR of CORK.

 Des MacHALE. The HUMOUR of CORK. Mercier, 1995.

My great-great and my great-great-great grandfathers came from Cork. Don't think I've been there, or in nearby Kinsale, where there are documents. Found this at a thrift store. I like fast reads to try to up my monthly book totals. Enjoyed this. p. 54  "It was said of the Cork Militia that they were useless in times of war and dangerous in times of peace." 

WHY MEN LIE

 Linden MacIntyre. WHY MEN LIE. Vintage, 2012. 

Characters from The Bishop's Man and The Winter Wives. Narrated by Effie MacAskill Gillis, about her affair with JC Campbell. Set in Toronto and Nova Scotia. This reader was skeptical of the male depiction of a female character. Seems her life revolves around men, 2 exes, - John & Sextus - her brother Duncan, 1 ex fling with Conor, and her latest, JC. Seems to focus on male deception and sins of omission without seemingly being aware of her own doing the same. I suspect this is the point. Opposite-sex depiction of somewhat unreliable (and not very self-aware) female narrator. I lot of violence, urban and rural. It struck me that even though they are thousands of miles from home, these city people still associate mostly with relatives and other people from home.

Oct 28, but inspired by story of a similar topic at reading club. 

The WARS

 Timothy Findley. The WARS. Penguin, 1978.

Thrift store divination, just when I was looking for something Canadian about history. Short. A relative is researching the military history of a WW I soldier. Starts with his teenage years, a guilt over inattention to a sister in a wheelchair when she fell, hit her head, and died. As a teen, signs up, sent to officer training in Alberta, first brothel, sexual experience, and exposure to men in the next room. Supervising Boer War vets, when he has never shot a weapon. Asks his father to send him a pistol. Traumas trigger guilt about sister. On leave in England, has an affair. Returns to the front. Very Wilfred Owen, Dulce et and Anthem for Doomed Youth. 

The Picton File

 Stevie Cameron. The PICTON FILE. Knopf, 2007.

Two hundred and fifty pages about the reporter's work covering the Robert Picton case in PoCo/NewWest/Vancouver from Toronto, 2002 to 2007. Would be valuable instruction for journalism students, showing the length of time, unexpected delays, legal obstructions of covering court cases in Canada. For a general reader, eye-opening about the system itself. The seven years delay between arrest and first day of trial. The interdependent stages--gathering evidence, charges, pre-trial, preliminary hearing, voir dire (where lawyers argue about admissibility of evidence), strict publication ban, and in the last five pages, the opening statements listing the horrendous evidence. Cameron has a second volume, post trial, called On the Farm: Robert William Picton and the Tragic Story of Vancouver's Missing Women but this first book is about as much as I need to know. As she waited, Cameron researched the farm itself, the family, and the missing women and their families. The inaction of police over the years, refusing to take reports of missing women or to follow up upon them is an important subtext as is unexplained harassment of members of the press. 

The Story Girl

 L.M. Montgomery. The Story Girl. L.C. Page & Co., 1911.

THE CURE FOR DROWNING

 Loghan Paylor. THE CURE FOR DROWNING

I haven't enjoyed a novel this much for ages.