THIS THING OF DARKNESS by Barbara Fradkin

Number seven in the excellent Inspector Green series is a taut, tense story set in Ottawa's Byward Market: the bustling heart of the city by day, but rife with drugs and prostitution at night. An elderly man is found beaten to death, but he is not a usual victim: he is a well-dressed Jewish psychiatrist. The obvious suspect is a young black man, his image captured on a security tape. Green, drawn to the case for personal reasons, is not convinced they have the right man. This creates friction with a new sergeant from Major Crime, Marie Claire Levesque, who is satisfied she's made the right call. Green, chafing under a regime of too many planning initiatives and not enough hands-on police work, can't resist digging around; he discovers an alienated son, and a mysterious prostitute who may have witnessed the murder. This is an excellent police procedural, but the equal strength of the series is Green's non-professional life, with his wife and small son, his teenaged, troubled daughter from a previous marriage, and finally, a crisis with his long time friend and former partner, Brian Sullivan.



ANNE'S FAVOURITE:

ARCTIC BLUE DEATH by R.J.Harlick

This is a fascinating story, the fifth in R.J. Harlick's Meg Harris series. Unlike in her earlier books, the story is set outside of Meg's comfort zone of the forests of West Quebec. Despite misgivings about doing so, she travels to Toronto to visit her mother and sister, then, at their insistence, on to Iqaluit in order to try and solve the mystery of her father's death many years before. Is he alive after all? Was he murdered? Does his disappearance have to do with his love for Inuit art? As well as learning the answers to these questions, the reader gets to know and appreciate Iqaluit and Inuit art along with Meg.



INGE SUGGESTS:

HIT & MRS. by Lesley Crewe