It gets dark early in Algonquin Bay. Take a drive up Airport Hill at four o' clock on a February afternoon, and when you come back half an hour later the streets of the city will glitter below you in the dark like so many runways. The forty-sixth parallel may not be all that far north; you can be much farther north and still be in the United States, and even London, England, is a few degrees closer to the North Pole. But this is Ontario, Canada, we're talking about, and Algonquin Bay in February is the very definition of winter. Algonquin Bay is snowbound, Algonquin Bay is quiet, Algonquin Bay is very, very cold. Read the evocative opening of Giles Blunt's novel and you may begin to understand why Tony Hillerman says this is the novel he wishes he'd written. Keep reading, and you may wonder why other authors haven't joined the vicarious narrative line. With devastating precision, Blunt effortlessly weaves together strands of lives both led and taken in this tiny Canadian town, limning a hauntingly paradoxical picture of isolation and community, two sides of a fragile bulwark against violence.

John Cardinal was taken off homicide investigation after a fruitless and expensive quest for 13-year-old Katie Pine, a Chippewa girl who disappeared from the nearby reservation. After months of insisting that Katie was no runaway, Cardinal receives the cold comfort of vindication in the form of Katie's corpse, discovered in an abandoned mine shaft. But the case, when reopened, becomes a Pandora's box of horror. Katie's body is only the first to be found, as Cardinal uncovers a pattern that links her death to those of two other children. When another boy is reported missing, Cardinal knows he is in a race against time to find the killer (so trite a phrase, while technically accurate, does radical injustice to Blunt's razor-sharp plot and eerily pragmatic balance between the cop and his prey).

His new partner, Lise Delorme, is trying to uncover her own pattern. Drafted by the RCMP to find proof that Cardinal has been accepting money from drug runner Kyle Corbett to derail the Mounties' investigations (three attempted busts good for absolutely nothing), she sifts through the minutiae of Cardinal's life. Proud father, loving husband, dedicated officer--at what price has this edifice been constructed? Suffice it to say that Cardinal's past and present link him in ironic counterpoint to those people for whom he is inevitably the bearer of bad tidings, leaving them "trying to recognize each other through the smoke and ashes" of grief.

Blunt has created a world in which every conversation can seem as ominous as the moan of the wind and the bullet-like report of shifting lake ice ("It was a new art form for Delorme, picking shards of fact from the exposed hearts of the bereaved. She looked at Cardinal for help, but he said nothing. He thought, "Get used to it."). But it is also a world whose bleak landscape is touched with unexpected humor. Witness this description of one of the many minor, but always beautifully detailed, characters who populate the novel's pages: "Arthur 'Woody' Wood was not in the burglary business to enhance his social life. Like all professional burglars, he went to great lengths to avoid meeting people on the job. At other times, well, Woody was as sociable as the next fellow."

Part police procedural, part psychological thriller, part exploration of a region's landscape and people, the novel is an astonishing, powerful hybrid-- worthy of far more than a mere 40 words of praise. --Kelly Flynn

From Publishers Weekly
This brooding tale of a search for a serial killer in rural Ontario takes its title from the often-quoted fact that Eskimos have 40 words for snow. "What people really need is forty words for sorrow," thinks Det. John Cardinal, whose glum outlook aptly mirrors the mood of Blunt's atmospheric thriller. The story begins when the frozen body of 13-year-old Chippewa Katie Pine is discovered on one of the Manitou Islands near Algonquin Bay, Ontario. Cardinal, whose obsessive search for the missing girl when she first disappeared six months earlier got him kicked off the case, ends up back in the good graces of his superiors. Or so he thinks. But his new partner, Lisa Delorme, fresh from the Office of Special Investigations (think Internal Affairs), has been paired with Cardinal so she can covertly investigate him at the same time. Dogging Cardinal's record is his connection with drug dealer Kyle Corbett. Each time the police tried to bust Corbett, he was warned by someone on the inside; Cardinal, who is burdened with a guilty secret and a wife who's in and out of mental institutions, is the prime suspect. Focusing initially on Cardinal, Blunt (author of the praised Cold Eye) opens up the plot by chronicling what happens to the next potential victim of what the newspapers are calling the Windigo Killer. While the plot is formulaic (combining both a least-likely-suspect twist and a you-may-think-it's-over-but-it's-not finale), the plangent atmosphere gradually and effectively permeates the reader's consciousness. The characters achieve dimension slowly, like figures in a developing Polaroid, and then become vivid. Sorrow is palpable, and readers making their way through the book will feel like they're walking hunched over against a steady, chilling wind but the final destination, like Cardinal's final redemption, is well earned and well worth the trip. Agent, Helen Heller. (June 25)Forecast: Glowing advance praise from the likes of Jonathan Kellerman, Tony Hillerman and Lee Child augurs well for this deserving, intelligent thriller. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Detective John Cardinal, once of homicide, now of burglary, has just been reassigned back to homicide and partnered with Lisa Delorme, formerly a detective with the Special Investigations squad. Delorme is investigating Cardinal undercover while ostensibly working with him to locate five missing, possibly dead children and teens in Algonquin Bay, Canada. Convincing police detail and realistic depictions of a Canadian winter combine with a well-paced story and fleshed-out characters to create an enticing and intriguing tale. James Daniels combines tonal variations with changes in pitch to differentiate among the characters. His diction is clear, and his speech is paced to the story. Recommended for popular fiction collections and public libraries with a demand for mysteries set in Canada. Laurie Selwyn, San Antonio P.L. Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From AudioFile
In this grisly thriller a tainted cop searches for a serial child-killer. A strong constitution for graphic violence is needed to stay with this book, but narrator James Daniels does manage to lighten the tone. Blunt's first novel shows skill with characters and plotting, but is pervasive with violent detail. Daniels doesn't convincingly convey the full menace of the criminals, but perhaps blessedly so--providing some relief. Daniels is quite skilled with some of the personal exchanges between the cops, and the dialogue is full of Canadian vowels and a fine sense of the bone-chilling Algonquin Bay cold. R.F.W. © AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

From Booklist
Canada has an extremely low homicide rate, so when the tiny town of Algonquin Bay in northern Ontario is visited by a serial killer whose prey is pre-adolescent children, shock waves are amplified. Blunt's handling of procedure (involving both local and regional police and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police) is masterful, and his treatment of character is especially intriguing, as he shows us believable protagonists, caught up in the confusion of their own lives yet called to respond to an overarching menace. Detective John Cardinal, lonely, depressed, and isolated from his colleagues because of their suspicion that he's on the take, must work with a female cop, Lise Delerme, who has her own problems, not the least of which is her uncertainty over whether Cardinal knows that she's investigating him. Their challenge is to come out of the miasma of personal and professional problems to outwit a serial killer. A completely absorbing series debut and another fine example of the Canadian mystery. Connie Fletcher
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"When the badly decomposed body of thirteen-year-old Katie Pine is found in an abandoned mine shaft on the Chippewa Reserve, John Cardinal can take some small satisfaction in being proved right. It was Cardinal who'd kept the Pine case open, insisting she was no mere runaway, Cardinal who'd been demoted to the burglary squad for his excessive zeal." "Katie Pine isn't the only youngster to have gone missing in the rural town of Algonquin Bay, and Cardinal, brought back to the homicide division after the discovery of her body, is given the go-ahead to reopen the files on three other lost kids. Then another youth is reported missing, and as Cardinal adds his name to the caseload, he begins to see a pattern that screams "serial killer." Meanwhile, the brass have partnered him with Lisa Delorme, newly shifted to Homicide from the Office of Special Investigations, and Cardinal can't help wondering whether she's been sent to keep tabs on him. A guilty conscience makes him think so."--BOOK JACKET.

FROM THE CRITICS

Booklist

Blunt's handling of procedure...is masterful....A completely absorbing series debut...

Bookpage

...he populates his novel with vivid and complex characters....And, as far as villans go, they don't come much more evil than this.

Harper's Baazar

Blunt's chilly, gruesome tale gets into the fascinating minutiae of police work without ever losing its grasp on the human element.

Thomas Perry

Forty Words for Sorrow is a smart, superbly written novel which tests a likeable, fallible pair of investigators with some intriguing ethical questions as they use their considerable skills to solve a set of monstrous and disturbing crimes.

Jonathan Kellerman

40 Words for Sorrow is brilliant—one of the finest crime novels I've ever read. Giles Blunt writes with uncommon grace, style and compassion and he plots like a demon. This book has it all—unforgettable characters, beautiful language, throat-constricting suspense. Read all 18 "From The Critics" >

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