Crime Writer Margot Kinberg

Like many places, Ontario is a mix of cosmopolitan cities (like Toronto), smaller cities, and rural areas. It’s Canada’s second-largest province, so it’s got all sorts of different geography and lifestyles. As beautiful a place as it is, Ontario also has crime – well, at least fictionally. And you don’t have to go to Toronto to find it, either. In fact, you’ll notice in this post that I don’t mention crime fiction that takes place in Toronto; that’s another topic.

Howard Engels’ A City Called July takes place in fictional Grantham, Ontario, where Benjamin ‘Benny’ Cooperman has a private investigation business. One day, he gets an unexpected visit from his rabbi and the president of his congregation. One of the congregants, wealthy attorney Larry Gellar, has gone missing, along with the life savings of a number of other congregants. Cooperman’s visitors don’t want the police involved. For one thing, it would be too hard on Gellar’s wife Ruth and their children. For another, it wouldn’t look good for the local Jewish community. That’s why they want Cooperman to track down Gellar if he can and get him to return the money. Cooperman agrees and starts asking questions, beginning with the Gellar family. He soon finds that there are layers to this family that he didn’t know. He keeps digging, though. Then there’s a murder. And another murder. In the end, Cooperman finds out the truth about the money and about the deaths.

Giles Blunt’s Detective John Cardinal series takes place in Algonquin Bay, Ontario. In the first novel, Forty Words For Sorrow, a body is discovered in an abandoned mine shaft on Windigo Island. It’s soon discovered that this is the body of thirteen-year-old Katie Pine, who disappeared several months earlier. When Katie went missing, it was assumed she’d run away, and Cardinal had promised her mother he’d find her. Now it’s clear that she was murdered, and Cardinal and his police partner Lise Delorme have the thankless task of informing Katie’s mother and re-opening the case. He soon connects Katie’s disappearance with other disappearances of young people, and in the end, he and Delorme track down the killer.

Inger Ash Wolfe/Michael Redhill’s The Calling is the first of his novels featuring Detective Inspector (DI) Hazel Micallef. When the body of Delia Chandler is discovered, it’s clear that she was murdered, but there doesn’t seem to be any motive. She was terminally ill, so there’d have been no reason to kill her. It wasn’t a home invasion either, so it’s not a case of a burglar panicking and killing a witness. Soon enough, though, Micallef and her team learn that there’ve been other, similarly odd, motiveless murders. As they put the pieces together, they discover that they’re looking for a killer with a very unusual motive. If they’re going to prevent more loss of life, they’re going to have to catch the murderer as quickly as possible.

Steve Hamilton’s Ice Run features former Detroit cop Alex McKnight. He lives in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where he lives in one of a group of cabins his father left him. He rents the others out to hunters and others who want an outdoorsy experience. His love interest is Natalie Reynaud, who works for the Ontario Police Service (OPS). One day, she and McKnight make plans to meet up at the Ojibway Hotel in Sault Ste. Marie (Soo). When they arrive, they meet a strange man wearing a homberg hat. It’s a little odd when the man sends a good bottle of champagne to their table. It’s even more strange when later, he is found dead outside. The only clue to it all is the homberg hat which is left outside the room McKnight and Reynaud are using. The hat’s filled with ice and has a note that says, ‘I know who you are.’ It’s a very strange mystery and has its roots in local south Ontario history and in family history.

And then there’s Kelly Young’s Sloppy Joe, which takes place in the fictional town of Montgomery on the Thames, in southwestern Ontario, where Carmen Rodriguez and her husband Sebastian ‘Bass’ live. Their house is haunted by its previous owner Joe Caruso. Carmen can see and talk to Joe; so can Bass if Carmen is with him. Others can’t, though, and Carmen is well aware of how odd it is, so very few people know about this side of her. One day, Joe asks Carmen to help solve the murders of two women, Ophelia Chamberlain and Ramona Vega, who recently died by poison. At first, Carmen refuses, but Joe doesn’t take ‘no’ for an answer, so Carmen is finally persuaded. When she meets the ghosts of Ophelia and Ramona, Carmen learns that each blames the other for the murders. It’s going to be a challenge to get them to work together, but Carmen and Joe finally manage it. The question soon becomes: if someone else killed the two women, who was it and why? It’s not going to be an easy case to solve, since there are several possible suspects. In the end, and with help from the ghosts, Carmen’s able to find out the truth.

See what I mean? Ontario is a beautiful province with a lot to offer. But that doesn’t mean it’s free of murder, at least fictional murder.

ps. Thanks TripAdvsor, for the great photograph!

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young’s Helpless.