“Virtuosic writing, bringing sensation as close to reality as words on a page are likely to.”
— London Free Press
“Blunt’s North Pole episodes feel even more perishingly sub-zero than Ian McEwan’s.”
— Toronto Star
“Nothing in contemporary crime fiction matches the erotically charged scene in which Delorme nabs a homicidal villain.”
— Vancouver Sun
“Anyone who thinks Canadian mystery novels can’t compete with their British counterparts has clearly not been introduced to Giles Blunt.”
— Winnipeg Free Press
“Beautifully written, with exceptionally solid characters.”
— Globe and Mail
“One of the most original and convincing thrillers in many years… will keep you on the edge of your seat.”
— Deadly Diversions.com
“A series that shines as serious, committed, and, without ever resorting to cliché, thoroughly Canadian.”
— Reviewing the Evidence.com
Summary
Until The Night
It's not unusual for John Cardinal to be hauled out of a warm bed on a cold night in Algonquin Bay to investigate a murder. And at first this dead body, sprawled in the parking lot of Motel 17, looks pretty run of the mill: the corpse has a big bootprint on his neck, and the likely suspect is his lover's outraged husband. But the lover has gone missing. And then Lise Delorme, following a hunch, locates another missing woman, a senator's wife from Ottawa, frozen in the ruins of an abandoned hotel way back in the woods. Spookily, she was chained up and abandoned wearing a new winter parka and boots, with a thermos beside her—as if her murderer was giving her a whisper of a chance at survival.
Neither Delorme nor Cardinal can imagine where their investigation will lead: into an illicit romance in the high Arctic; into the swingers' world inhabited by an ex-rock star who owns a pub in Algonquin Bay as well as private members' clubs in Toronto and Ottawa; into the insecurity that afflicts Delorme the woman and the cop; and into the deep bond between Delorme and Cardinal, which is at real risk of coming undone.