BURY YOUR DEAD

Louise Penny. BURY YOUR DEAD. 2010.

Chief Inspector Armand Gamache is resting up in Quebec City with Emile Comeau, his old mentor, when he agrees to help investigate a murder of a Champlain fanatic whose body is found in the basement of an English-language historical society. As he investigates, Gamache re-lives the trauma of a recent hostage-taking terrorist take-down which led to four dead officers. The funeral was national news. Both he and Jean-Guy Beauvoir are injured.The details of the terrorist plan are sketchy, helping us anticipate further revelations. 

Jean-Guy has been sent to review a murder in Three Pines, to ensure that the convicted felon is really guilty. 

Beautiful evocations of the Quebec winter. 

ROALD AMUNDSEN

ROALD AMUNDSEN: Canadian Explorer

A quick illustrated Children's book about the inspirations and achievements of Norwegian Arctic and Antarctic explorer Amundsen who my Great-Uncle Murray is rumoured to have met when he was stationed at Cape Fullerton, in what is now Nunavut.

(Not this book, but I can't find an image of the one I borrowed from FVRL.)

HOW THE SCOTS CREATED CANADA

Paul Cowan. HOW THE SCOTS CREATED CANADA. Dragon Hill, 2006.

Very interesting round-up of Scots presence in Canada, mostly (but not all) since 1763. Trying to contact the writer to suggest additions. The Piper Richardson story and statue in Chilliwack, and his pipes now in the Royal BC Museum. Place names like Abbotsford, Banff, McGregor, etc. And the most famous of all in Canadian literature--Margaret Laurence, especially her novel The Diviners, in which the protagonist Morag Gunn traces her family's Scottish roots (Gunn, Logan, Wemyss, Simpson) as a step in her growing Canadian identity. Actually, now that I think about it, there is almost no reference in Cowan's book to the contribution of Scots women in the creation of Canada. Nellie McClung? Alice Munro? See her The View from Castle Rock. European traditions die hard. 

THE LOVE OF A GOOD WOMAN

Alice Munro. The LOVE of a GOOD WOMAN. 1999.

Why do I own so many unread books by Canada's Nobel Prize-winner Alice Munro? Partly, the collections of short stories do not have the push or pull of plot to get me into and lead me on to the end. But reading this book club selection makes me admit: she is such an intimidating writer, she knows so much about human beings and their motivations, it's almost frightening. 

Our club decided to each pick story and present it. I was going to do "Save the Reaper" because at first I was confused, lost in the present/past switches, and unclear what the title could refer to. Then the main character Eve remembers a fragment, not correctly, seemingly inspired by the fields ready for harvest. An allusion to the Lady of Shallot, long fields of barley and of rye, before she looks into the mirror at Lancelot and the curse is realized. So the reaper is a harvest machine. It is also the grim reaper, time, approaching death. It is also the biker hive Eve stumbles into, alluding to Grim Reapers, a biker group, and the way fear of aliens from outer space is nothing compared to the cruelty and evil just down the road. 

But then I read the title story. Wow. A murder mystery without any police or detective. In effect, we the readers are the investigators. And Munro deals out the clues from the first card, hiding the mystery under a tale of a specific town in a specific time--the happy days of childhood, the variety of home life, the aspirations of women for careers, the professionals who make house calls, the challenges within relationships and within marriages. 

Who is the "good woman" and whom does she love? 

PLAYING WITH FIRE

Peter Robinson. PLAYING WITH FIRE. 2004.

Two people die in a fire on two narrow boats. Then a man dies is a fire in his caravan (RV). DCI Banks and his team look for the connections in the worlds of forgery and art fraud.