7th annual Canadian Book Challenge: Summary post

This year I participated in the 7th annual Canadian Book Challenge. This is an online reading challenge hosted by The Book Mine Set: the Book Blog with a Canadian Bias. Participants from Canada and around the world aim to read and review 13 or more Canadian books in a one year span: July 1, 2013 through June 30, 2014. A Canadian book is a book written by a Canadian author or set in Canada.

This was my 2nd year participating in the challenge. I read only 10 books for the challenge this year, but I was happy with that accomplishment.

I read these books for the challenge this year:

Unholy Ground by John Brady

The author was born in Dublin but immigrated to Canada at the age of 20. The first book in the series won the Arthur Ellis award for Best First Novel. The next four books in the series were all finalists for the Arthur Ellis award for Best Novel. The protagonist is Matt Minogue, a Detective Sergeant in the Murder Squad, a division of the Gardai, the Irish police force. The death of a elderly resident of Dublin is being investigated; he appears to be merely a British citizen who had settled in Ireland. It turns out he was connected to MI5 in the United Kingdom. This book was published in 1989, and is set in Dublin, Ireland. Thus the political issues in Ireland at the time are a big factor.

I Am Half-Sick of Shadows by Alan Bradley

Speaking from Among the Bones by Alan Bradley

The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches by Alan Bradley 

The 4th, 5th, and 6th books in a series, set in post World War II Britain, in the village of Bishop's Lacey. Flavia narrates the stories. She is the youngest daughter (around 11 years old) in the de Luce family, and lives with her two sisters and their father in an ancient country house.

The Little Shadows by Marina Endicott

The Little Shadows by Marina Endicott is a historical novel set in the years preceding and during World War I. It is the story of three sisters, teenagers as the story begins, who travel with their mother to support the family as a vaudeville act. I loved this book and it is hard to describe why. I was engaged in the story immediately. I loved the way the author switched back and forth between the sisters (especially) and the mother (occasionally). This book covers the years from 1912-1917 and thus World War I figures a great deal. That was also a plus for me. I like to learn about wars in a fictional setting.

Under the Dragon's Tail by Maureen Jennings

This is the second book in the Murdoch Mysteries series, published by Maureen Jennings in 1998, and featuring William Murdoch, an Acting Detective in Toronto in the late 1800's. Maureen Jennings does a wonderful job of portraying Victorian-era Toronto.

We also get well-developed and interesting characters. Without dwelling on Murdoch's past, the author conveys how his childhood has affected him, and his continuing grief for his fiancee who died of typhoid, at the same time he yearns for a relationship with a woman. Maybe he is a tad too perfect, but I can live with that. Constable George Crabtree, and several of the suspects at varying levels of society are also well-defined; their portrayals contribute to the overall portrait of the city, its poverty and its inhabitants. 

The Night the Gods Smiled by Eric Wright

Eric Wright was born in 1929 in South London, England and immigrated to Canada in 1951. He is an academic; he taught English at Ryerson Polytechnic University, Toronto from 1958  to 1989. Four of his novels have been awarded the Arthur Ellis Award for Best Crime Novel, including this one. 

This book gives us some insight into the relationship between the French areas of Canada and the English speaking areas. Toronto police detective Charlie Salter is assigned as liaison to a case of murder that takes place in Montreal, because the victim is from Toronto. It is the kind of case that his department doesn't have the time or inclination to deal with, so it is passed down to him. He is thrilled to get it, since he has been working essentially as a "gofer". He works with Sergeant Henri O'Brien from Montreal, and they develop a nice relationship along the way.

In the Shadow of the Glacier by Vicki Delany

This mystery novel is set in the fictional mountain town of Trafalgar, British Columbia. Constable Molly Smith is assigned to assist veteran Detective Sergeant John Winters in a murder investigation. Although Molly (also know as "Moonlight") is a rookie, she has insider knowledge of the community that Winters does not have; on the other hand she is closely involved with various persons who could be suspects. There were a lot of elements to the story: draft dodgers who had moved to Canada years earlier, ecological issues associated with a resort development, treatment of women in police departments, and the complexity of family relationships and working relationships.

Sleep While I Sing by L. R. Wright

This book is the second in a series by L.R. Wright (1939- 2001). The series features RCMP Staff Sergeant Karl Alberg and is set in a small town on the Sunshine Coast of British Columbia. This second entry in the series starts with the discovery of a dead woman in a secluded area. The woman remains unidentified. An artist's sketch is made and distributed, but does not generate the identification they were hoping for.

L. R. Wright excels at characterization. Karl is a loner and divorcee who misses his family. He has his problems, but he is happy in his work and good at it. The secondary characters and side plots are interesting. The writing is understated.

The Film Club by David Gilmour

Overview from Dundurn Press: "The Film Club is the true story about David Gilmour's decision to let his 15-year-old son drop out of high school on the condition that the boy agrees to watch three films a week with him. The book examines how those pivotal years changed both their lives." I read this book as much for the commentary on the films watched as for the story of Gilmour's experiences during those years. 

I will be signing up for the 8th Annual Canadian Book Challenge as soon as I read my first Canadian book for the challenge.

The Film Club: David Gilmour

Overview from Dundurn Press:

From the 2005 winner of the Governor-General's Award for Fiction and the former national film critic for CBC television comes a delightful and absorbing book about the agonies and joys of home-schooling a beloved son. Written in the spare elegant style he is known for, The Film Club is the true story about David Gilmour's decision to let his 15-year-old son drop out of high school on the condition that the boy agrees to watch three films a week with him. The book examines how those pivotal years changed both their lives.

I read this book for several reasons. Colm Redmond, regular guest blogger at Clothes in Books, talked about the book in this entertaining post. I like to read books about films, almost as much as I like to read books about books.  In this case, I was pretty sure that the author would not be going into a lot of detail about each film, which can be a good thing, and he did not. The author is Canadian and the events are set in Canada, so it fits in with the Canadian Book Challenge.

I found the author's story of his experience of living with his son, Jesse, during those three years to be interesting on some levels; at other times he seemed boring and full of himself. The book spends a lot of time covering his son's romances and sexual experiences at the time. I would have preferred some emphasis on the author's struggle to find work during those years. However, the author's love for his son and evident concern for his future comes through in everything they do together, and they both were lucky to have this experience together. [Jesse's mother and Gilmour's ex-wife fully supported the experiment to the extent of letting them live in her house while she lives elsewhere. His current wife was also supportive. This speaks to a family who care for each other's welfare.]

The parts of the book I liked most are the discussions of films, which are sprinkled throughout. Not in depth, just pithy comments from both father and son. Gilmour does not necessarily see all movies the same way I do, but I usually enjoy hearing others opinions on films, regardless if we agree or disagree. Some of the movies I have never seen, and would like to try. Others I haven't seen in a long time, and would love to revisit.

Some quotes from the book:

I designed a Stillness Unit for us to watch. This was about how to steal a scene from all the actors around you by not moving. I started, of course, with High Noon (1952). There are happy accidents in the movies where everything seems to just click into place. Right script, right director, right cast. Casablanca (1942) is one, The Godfather (1972) another, and High Noon...
The film was made at a time when Westerns were usually in color and for the most part featured a kind of granite-chinned, high-minded hero, more of a cartoon than a human being. Suddenly along came High Noon, shot in stark black-and-white—no pretty sunsets and gorgeous mountain ranges; what we got instead was a small, rather mean-looking town.

High Noon is one of the few movies that Gilmour goes into detail about.  He also does a good few paragraphs about Steve McQueen and Bullitt.

Gilmour has some snarky comments about people he had interviewed, which I thought were in poor taste. He has very nice comments on Robert Altman, a director who I like a lot: "chatty, literate, easygoing; no wonder actors worked for him for a song."

More of the comments on movies were fairly brief, like this sentence about Under Siege. I love Under Siege, I have watched it many, many times.

We kept the guilty-pleasures momentum going with Under Siege (1992), a yummy bit of nonsense that boasted two villains, Gary Busey and Tommy Lee Jones, both superb actors, both gnawing on the material.

To be fair, as I skimmed through the book looking for examples, I found other movies that he had discussed in depth, and some actors that he covered in more detail. So, if you are reading it for a sort-of movie review book, it can be a good source and entertaining.

Overall, I liked this book more than I disliked it. The good outweighs the bad. I will be reading through it again more than once to follow up on films I want to watch or re-watch. There is a list of movies discussed at the end of the book; I just wish it had an index.

Goodreads information about this author:

The author of six novels, he also hosted the award-winning Gilmour on the Arts. In 2005, his novel A Perfect Night to Go to China won the Governor General’s Award for Fiction. His next book, The Film Club, was a finalist for the 2008 Charles Taylor Prize. It became an international bestseller, and has sold over 200,000 copies in Germany and over 100,000 copies in Brazil. He lives in Toronto with his wife.

Some resources:

• Check out this list of the films discussed briefly in The Film Club.
• A good interview at this site on memoir writing.
• A review at the New York Times.
• A review at Quill & Quire.

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Publisher:  Twelve Books, 2008 (orig. pub. 2007)

Length:      217 pages

Format:     Hardback

Genre:       Non-fiction, memoir

Sleep While I Sing: L. R. Wright

This book is set in an unusual part of Canada, or so it seems to me. RCMP Staff Sergeant Karl Alberg works in Sechelt, a small town on the Sunshine Coast in British Columbia, Canada. As described in the book:

This part of British Columbia was famous for sun, and for a balmy climate in which roses and eucalyptus trees thrived alongside giant Douglas firs and wild rhododendrum. The richness of the land was equaled only by the richness of the coastal waters...

But in winter the sun often disappeared for days or weeks at a time. And then Alberg couldn't easily recall how brilliantly blue the sea could be, how bright and hot were the days of spring and summer and fall.

Sleep While I Sing is the second book in the Karl Alberg series by L. R. Wright. The first book, The Suspect, won the Edgar for Best Mystery Novel. Both books feature good storytelling, excellent characterization, and loads of atmosphere.

At the end of The Suspect, Karl Alberg and Cassandra the librarian seem to be getting seriously interested in each other. My thought was... another series with a developing love interest. Sometimes those are fine, sometimes I find them tiresome. But no. In this second book in the series, Cassandra has a thing going with an actor from Los Angeles who has been visiting his mother and sister in Sechelt. The relationship between Karl and Cassanda is awkward. I liked this unexpected element.

This second entry in the series starts with the discovery of a dead woman in a secluded area. A big problem is that there is nothing to identify the woman, and she is not from the area. This severely limits the investigation. An artist's sketch is made and distributed, but does not generate the identification they were hoping for.

I enjoyed this  mystery immensely. I liked the characterizations. Karl is a loner and divorcee who misses his family. He has his problems, but he is happy in his work and good at it. The secondary characters and side plots are interesting. The writing is understated. I also liked how various elements of the story tied together at the end.

I did guess who the culprit was, although certainly not the motivation. But I never consider that a negative. I recommend this author, and I recommend starting with the first book in the series. This one can certainly stand alone, but the first one is well worth reading and you get a fuller picture of Karl.

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Publisher: Reprint ed., Penguin Books, 1987. Orig. pub. 1986.
Length:  212 pages
Format:  paperback
Series:   Karl Alberg
Setting:  Sunshine Coast in British Columbia, Canada
Genre:    Mystery, Police Procedural

In the Shadow of the Glacier: Vicki Delany

Summary at Poisoned Pen Press:

Trouble is brewing in the small, bucolic mountain town of Trafalgar, British Columbia. An American who came to Trafalgar as a Vietnam War draft dodger has left land and money to the town. But there's a catch. The money must be used to build a garden to honor draft dodgers. This bequest has torn the close-knit, peaceful town apart. Then the body of a leading garden opponent is found in an alley, dead from a single blow to the head. Constable Molly Smith is assigned to assist veteran Detective Sergeant John Winters in the investigation.

Because Winters' usual assistant is out for a while, Molly is given the opportunity to work with him on a murder investigation. She is thrilled, and wants desperately to do well. Winters, on the other hand, finds her brash and impulsive, and takes a while to get used to working with her. At times it was confusing (to me) why Molly would be allowed to work on the case. On the one hand she has insider knowledge of the community that Winters does not have; on the other hand she is closely involved with various persons who could be suspects.

There were a lot of elements to the story: draft dodgers moving to Canada, ecological issues associated with a resort development, treatment of women in police departments, the complexity of family relationships and working relationships ... maybe too many. I like a book that covers a wide range of topics while solving a mystery, but in this case I was distracted at times. I had a hard time getting into some of the characters. I liked and warmed to the main characters: Molly "Moonlight" Smith, a rookie policeman, and Sergeant John Winters, who has taken this job in a small town after a very unpleasant case in a previous job. I liked getting to know their fears and family issues, while they work on the investigation. There were a host of other characters and some of those I had a hard time getting into.

This is a fun police procedural, somewhat on the cozy side. I like the setting and learning a little bit of history of the draft dodgers in the US that I had not been aware of. Trafalgar is a thinly disguised version of Nelson, British Columbia. Per Wikipedia, it is true that draft dodgers from the US settled in Nelson. "During the Vietnam War, many American draft dodgers settled in Nelson and the surrounding area. This influx of liberal, mostly educated young people had a significant impact on the area's cultural and political demographics." I will continue reading this series not only because I am curious about the development of Molly and her partnership with Sergeant Winters, but also because I think that learning more about this city and its surroundings will be interesting.

Margot at Confessions of a Mystery Writer... has written two posts featuring Delany's books: a spotlight on In the Shadow of the Glacier and Introducing: Vicki Delany, where she also talks about her other series.

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Publisher:  Poisoned Pen Press, 2007.
Length:  302 pages
Format:  e-book
Series:   Constable Molly Smith series
Setting:  British Columbia, Canada
Genre:  Mystery, Police Procedural

The Night the Gods Smiled: Eric Wright

In some ways, this is the perfect type of mystery for me. To a certain extent, it is a straight novel about a man going through a mid-life crisis and having difficulties with his job. His job just happens to be a police detective and he wants to be investigating serious crimes, not sitting at a desk. However, sometimes I did find that the story was too slow, too quiet. I kept expecting it to pick up and waited for the twists and turns in the plot. (I do wonder if I have been reading too many "exciting" books.)

Eric Wright is a Canadian author of mystery novels. He was born in 1929 in South London, England and immigrated to Canada in 1951. He is an academic; he taught English at Ryerson Polytechnic University, Toronto from 1958  to 1989. Two of his novels have been awarded the Arthur Ellis Award for Best Crime Novel. This book received that award, and also Britain's John Creasy Memorial Award for first books by previously unpublished writers.

This book gives us some insight into the relationship between the French areas of Canada and the English speaking areas. Toronto police detective Charlie Salter is assigned as liaison to a case of murder that takes place in Montreal, because the victim is from Toronto. It is the kind of case that his department doesn't have the time or inclination to deal with, so it is passed down to him. He is thrilled to get it. He works with Sergeant Henri O'Brien from Montreal, and they develop a nice relationship along the way.

The victim in this book is a professor of English at a small college in Toronto, so Wright has drawn on his own experience and we get an accurate picture of a group of colleagues at the college affected by this professor's death. This group was visiting Montreal for a conference when the death occurred.

In retrospect, I may not have been fair to this book as I read it. Maybe too much going on in my life while reading it. Maybe not so interested in male mid-life angst. And regardless of my initial reactions, I do hope to continue reading the series, should I find further books available.

When I went back and reread the first chapter, I was overwhelmed at the beauty of some of the passages. Charlie is in a loving marriage, and has two teenage boys; his wife is from a rich family on Prince Edward Island. Here he describes the feeling of an interloper married into a rich family.

Annie's family were well-bred, tactful, and keen to include Annie's choice in the clan. They absorbed Salter's family into their world of fishing, sailing, riding and perpetual lobster suppers as if he had paid dues. Most of the time Salter was happy to enjoy their world. Occasionally, impatient and constricted by it, he felt like the lone Christian in-law in a family of Jews, conscious of his uncircumcised state, his slightly albino look, and of the determination of his relatives never to make him feel like an outsider.

There is quite a bit about Salter's family life and relationships and mid-life adjustments. For some readers, that might be a distraction. I was fine with that, especially Charlie's introspective musings, I just felt that the whole story moved too slowly.

In Encyclopedia Mysteriosa (1994), William L. DeAndrea describes the Charlie Salter novels as "low-key, but finely crafted and sharply observed police procedurals." He also says:

A policeman with real-life problems and emotions, Toronto Inspector Charlie Salter is reminiscent of Helen Reilly's Inspector McKee in that although his cases are procedural in form, they don't usually take the protagonist down any particularly mean streets. Shrewd observation of the middle classes is Salter's specialty.

This book is very much like some Golden Age mysteries, with less violence and a slower pace.

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Publisher: Signet, 1985; originally pub. in hardback, 1983
Length:  254 pages
Format: mass market paperback
Series:  Charlie Salter
Genre:  Mystery, Police Procedural

The Little Shadows: Marina Endicott

The Little Shadows by Marina Endicott is a historical novel set in the years preceding and during World War I. It is the story of three sisters, teenagers as the story begins, who travel with their mother to support the family as a vaudeville act. The book is 527 pages long, and that is the first chunkster of that size I have read in over a year.

I often have a difficult time reviewing books I like a lot. I loved this book and it is hard to describe why. I was engaged in the story immediately. I loved the way the author switched back and forth between the sisters (especially) and the mother (occasionally). It took a while for the characters to grow on me, but I enjoyed all of the story telling and the pictures of life in vaudeville.

Through the first half of the book, we follow the sisters in their travails in vaudeville. They all love the life and entertaining people, and I liked that it wasn't a chore for them. If they were tied down in one place for too long, they got bored. In the money or not, they wanted to be entertaining in vaudeville more than anything else.

At around the midpoint of the book, the sisters are all maturing and various aspects of life intrude upon their plans and goals. I don't like to say more than that, but at this point, I was more involved with the characters and pulling for them with their various problems or triumphs in life. This book covers the years from 1912-1917 and thus World War I figures a great deal. That was also a plus for me. I like to learn about wars in a fictional setting.

I am no expert on vaudeville. I have seen vaudeville depicted in movies, although maybe the life was described more glamorously there. We have seen early sound Vitaphone shorts with actors from vaudeville featured, and my husband has several books on the topic. Marina Endicott has done extensive research, as she describes in her acknowledgements and at her website. This book shows the poverty and uncertainty in the vaudeville life for most performers, and how their fortunes may rise or fall based on luck just as easily as talent.

Many of the sections are preceded with quotes that relate to vaudeville and often these quotes come from this book, How to Enter Vaudeville by Frederic LaDelle.

I learned about this book from Moira at Clothes in Books. Her excellent blog has introduced me to several authors, and I am grateful to have experienced this one. See Moira's take on The Little Shadows here and here and here.

This book was written by a Canadian author, and a great deal of it is set in Canada. This book is my 5th book for the Canadian Book Challenge 7. Since I started participating in the Canadian Book Challenge in 2012, I have learned a lot about Canada that I did not know.

The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches: Alan Bradley

It is difficult to review this 6th book in the Flavia de Luce series without revealing spoilers (at least for previous books in the series). It completes one story arc about Flavia's adventures in her 11th year. It ties up loose ends that have been hinted at since the beginning, and I hate to reveal much about the story. 

As I have just recently reviewed both the 4th and the 5th book in this series, it is obvious to readers of the blog that I like the series very much.  I am very fond of Flavia and her adventures. The author develops her character over the six books, and we see her growth in that year that it covers. It is appropriate that she changes a good bit over this time as she is moving toward adolescence and the huge changes this brings. Even though most readers don't mind whether Flavia is a realistic 11-year-old or not, I think she is realistic. She just happens to be on the very intelligent and adventurous end of the continuum. But two other very important factors for my enjoyment are the setting (post-War England) and the author's ability to keep it entertaining and fun.

The only thing I would say specifically about this book is that it does have a different, more serious tone than the other books. It deals with a serious subject and Flavia is forced to grow up a bit in this book. I do recommend this book and the series very highly. I would hesitate to do this, because it seems too cozy for some, but I have noticed that there are many bloggers who read more edgy, gritty books who do like these books, so I would say, if you haven't tried the series, give one of the early books a try.

This series is definitely best read from the beginning, to see the progression of Flavia's development, but it is not necessary. Many readers have started at different entry points in this series, but I would say this book is not the place to start. It ties in too much to what happened in the fifth book.

This book was provided for review by Delacorte Press via NetGalley. The book was published in the US on January 14, 2014. This interview with the author indicates that there will be more books, and even a TV series (which I am not too sure about).

My reviews for the first four books in the series:
 The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie
 The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag
 A Red Herring Without Mustard
 I Am Half-Sick of Shadows
Speaking from Among the Bones

I Am Half-Sick of Shadows: Alan Bradley

This is my second Christmas-themed book in December. And again, it is a country house mystery, set in Britain. This one is a historical mystery; my first Christmas book this month was a vintage mystery by Agatha Christie (review here).

To describe the basic setup of this series... The books are set in post World War II Britain, in the village of Bishop's Lacey. Flavia is the youngest daughter (around 11 years old) in the de Luce family; she lives with her two sisters and their father in a very old country house that requires a lot of upkeep. Her mother died when she was young. Each member of the family is unique, and none of them communicate their feelings very well. Thus Flavia is an outsider and a loner, in her family and in the community.

I Am Half-Sick of Shadows is the fourth in the Flavia de Luce series by Alan Bradley.  I have read the first three books in the series and enjoyed them all. One of the most enjoyable elements of these books are the recurring characters. Some of my favorites are Dogger, and Aunt Felicity, and Flavia's oldest sister's many suitors, and Inspector Hewitt. I find Flavia's immediate family irritating, although we do get more information about each of them in this book.

The plot this time revolves around a film company coming to the de Luce home. Flavia's father has given them access to most of the house for filming a movie in exchange for enough money to be able to live there for a few more months. Eventually one of the visitors is murdered, and Flavia investigates, as always. The mystery in this book is slight, in my opinion, and I got confused at to the relationships of various members of the film company, but that did not mar my enjoyment of this novel.

I read these books less for the mystery and more for the picture of the times and to follow Flavia's story. When I read the first book in the series, I doubted whether Flavia as a heroine could sustain a series that I would be interested in, but so far she has.

In some ways I liked this one better than the others; I liked that it was restricted to the de Luce home, and that they were snowed in. I liked Flavia's experiments to prove or disprove the existence of Father Christmas. And I especially liked the further development of some of the relationships and characters. Dogger (mentioned above) is an old friend of her father’s, who handles just about everything around the house (except the cooking). Dogger and Aunt Felicity are fleshed out more in this book, a definite bonus.

I did not pick this book to read this month because of the skeleton on the cover, but it is a definite plus. And I did buy the 2nd book in the series at my favorite book sale because it was in good condition and had a great skeleton on the cover.

The author of this book is Canadian, therefore this book counts for my Canadian Book Challenge.

My reviews for the first three books in the series:
 The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie
 The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag
 A Red Herring Without Mustard


Other reviews of this book: at Mysteries in Paradise, at Ms. Wordopolis Reads, and at Stainless Steel Droppings. I give credit to Carl V. at Stainless Steel Droppings for introducing me to the Flavia de Luce series. Until I saw his very enthusiastic review for the first book, I had dismissed the series.

U is for Unholy Ground

Today, for the Crime Fiction Alphabet, I am featuring Unholy Ground. This is the second book in a ten-book series, and I reviewed the first book, A Stone of the Heart, earlier this year.

John Brady is the author. He was born in Dublin but Brady immigrated to Canada at the age of 20. The first book in the series won the Arthur Ellis award for Best First Novel. The next four books in the series were all finalists for the Arthur Ellis award for Best Novel.

This series is called the Inspector Matt Minogue series, but in this second book in the series, Minogue is a Detective Sergeant in the Murder Squad, a division of the Gardai, the Irish police force. I enjoyed the story, but it seems more like a spy story than a standard police procedural. That is fine with me, spy fiction is a favorite sub-genre also.

The death of a elderly resident of Dublin is being investigated; he appears to be merely a British citizen who had settled in Ireland. It turns out he was connected to MI5 in the United Kingdom. This book was published in 1989, and is set in Dublin, Ireland. Thus the political issues in Ireland at the time are a big factor.

Plot and character development are both very well done. Matt Minogue has a strong sense of self, a confidence in his abilities. When his decisions or deductions are questioned, he doesn't let it shake him. He is a family man and we see glimpses of his family, the daily family issues of a man with two children nearing adulthood.

I am including a quote from a review of A Stone of the Heart at View from the Blue House. The author of that blog lives and works in Ireland and knows a lot more about that area than I do.

The social interaction between characters is keenly observed and the dialogue is spot on, capturing the colloquialisms and banter of Irish brogue. Brady does an excellent job of capturing the political atmosphere in the South and the tensions between a somewhat political ambivalence and benign republicanism and an active support for the IRA.

This quote from the review of Unholy Ground at Kirkus Reviews gives a good overview:

A handsomely written, dark journey into Irish politics and English duplicity. Brady is a master of the telling detail, and within the framework of the political novel, has created memorable characters, most especially the estimable Minogue.

 The author's website has a large amount of background on the books in the series and the characters. I am personally holding off on reading a lot of the character background because I want to get further into the series first.

The Crime Fiction Alphabet is sponsored by Mysteries in Paradise.  Please visit this post to check out other entries for this letter.

This is my first book read for the 7th annual Canadian Book Challenge sponsored by John Mutford at The Book Mine Set. You can see information on joining this challenge HERE.