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.

WHITE TEETH

 Zadie Smith. WHITE TEETH. 

DEATH IN A DARKENING MIST

 Iona Whishaw. DEATH in a DARKENING MIST: A Lane Winslow Mystery. Touchwood, 2017.

Second in the series; my fifth, but not in order. Lane is at the hot springs with Angela and boys when a man is murdered in the change room. Because she speaks and reads Russian, Lane assists with translation of the Doukhobor witness Barisoff and helps uncover the identity of the victim. Streilieff. Uncovering the mystery is complicated by a second crime, not reported, of embezzlement at the bank, involving Featherstone and Charlie Andrews. Lane receives notice of her father's death in 1943 (3 years earlier) and a large cheque. Darling receives a letter from Gloria, his former wartime sweetheart, but he is already smitten with Lane although still unable to speak of it. Ames is trying to get them together. 

LOUIS RIEL: A COMIC-STRIP BIOGRAPHY

 Chester Brown. LOUIS RIEL: A COMIC-STRIP BIOGRAPHY. Drawn & Quarterly, 2003.

I've owned this book for more than 20 years and only dared to begin reading it this month. I feared an Ontario Orangeman tirade about a mad catholic and blood-thirsty natives standing in the way of conservatives-who-know-best politicians' ambitions in the far west. And I have the same hesitation I have about watching so-called "historical" movies, like those about the war that only Americans won and about presidential assassinations. Writers, producers, directors take stances and attempt to make their interpretations look real and believable. This is one of the ways the public has been dumbed down, and no one even knows that there is a difference between fact and opinion. So I chose not to look, even though, like many Manitobans, I celebrate Louis Riel as our Father of Confederation. Were it not for his resistance, there would have been no Bill of Rights that morphed into The Manitoba Act and Manitoba would not have been the first "in" province.

So, because of my biases, I found the footnotes more useful than the text. Although, I have recommended the text to high school students who had a first positive experience of Canadian history by reading it.

Of course, it didn't help when Page 3 begins with a major error of fact. Charles II never granted Rupert's Land to the Hudson's Bay Company. And the references to Big Bear and Poundmaker in Stony Mountain and their fates was also less than complete.

WE LOVE ANDERSON COOPER

 R.L. Maizes. WE LOVE ANDERSON COOPER. Celadon, 2019.

A collection of short stories. Mostly American. Many with Jewish cultural references. Dogs everywhere. And stories about violent or passive-aggressive responses to emotional abuse. Very interesting.