Home »
Blunt one of the best at being human
Book Review
By Derryll White
Giles Blunt (2005). Blackfly Season.
I sometimes wonder how the rest of the world views us, Canadians. It used to be that we were equated with blue berets and a strong world peacekeeping presence, and also a healthy universal health care program. Well, those have gone and I am happy that an author such as Giles Blunt is taking the effort to present Canada to the world. It thrills me to read the small debates about Conservative versus NDP ethics, the wane of health care, the strength of the CBC, the roots of the separatist movement in Quebec. Giles Blunt is Canada’s author in the way Jo Nesbo is Norway’s or Henning Mankell Sweden’s. These authors present the good and bad of what is happening in their countries now.
I found Blackfly Season a slower novel to get involved in, to be drawn into. The first two in the John Cardinal series had me from about page three on. This one is interesting and I have faith, but about a third of the way in I am missing the quick wit of Cardinal and the engaging interplay and tension between him and his partner Lise Delorme.
A substantial part of the novel centres on an exploration of an African belief system called Palo Mayombe, a religion similar to Voodoo and Santeria. It is dark and foreboding and ugly.
One of John Cardinal’s charms is that he is unfailingly polite to the people he works with, except when he totally loses it with an unmitigated jerk. He compliments, notices and appreciates good work just like a real human being, obviously good management qualities but in tune with himself enough to decline the desk opportunities. The reader will find many points on which to identify with John Cardinal.
Giles Blunt is one of the very best contemporary Canadian authors at being human. His detective John Cardinal takes the reader through experiences that are only too real – the temptations of the opposite sex, the death of a family member. Any reader who has had similar experiences, and that would be most of us, cannot help but be drawn into Cardinal’s world as it unfolds in a real manner. And Blunt is funny, quirky, acerbic – human in the Canadian style. Sometimes I don’t realize he is having me on until I find myself unexplainably grinning and then laughing.
– Derryll White once wrote books but now chooses to read and write about them. When not reading he writes history for the web at www.basininstitute.org.
