The Delicate Storm
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3.9 • 8 Ratings
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- £2.99
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- £2.99
Publisher Description
Stylish, atmospheric psychological thriller following on from the Silver Dagger Award winner, Forty Words for Sorrow.
A gruesome discovery in the wilderness above Algonquin Bay leads detectives John Cardinal and Lisa Delorme to a remote cabin that has served as an abattoir for a cold-blooded killer…
But the woods hide other horrors and soon a second body is discovered, naked and shrouded in ice. When one of the victims is identified as an American the Mounties have to be called in, but it's the Canadian Secret Service that arouses the most mistrust. Is their interference due to a suspected terrorist link, or is there something even more sinister behind it?
With Northern Ontario in the grip of an ice storm of once-in-a-hundred years severity, the woods take on a glittering, lethal beauty. And in this winter wonderland John Cardinal must hunt down and confront a killer.
Reviews
Praise for Forty Words for Sorrow
‘Extraordinary for its psychology and tensions. Giles Blunt manages to inhabit the minds of killer, victim and investigator alike, a feat that very few writers can manage. It moves his work to a different level’ Jane Jakeman, Independent
‘A taut and enthralling tale that is as dark as the Canadian winter setting is cold. Humane, intelligent and gripping, Forty Words for Sorrow is a haunting journey into the human heart in all its complexities’ Val McDermid
‘This Canadian novel is as fine a police procedural as any written in the USA and doesn’t rely on others for ideas – it comes across as fresh as morning dew … never less than fascinating throughout’ Mark Timlin, Independent on Sunday
‘A highly professional tour-de-force: excellently plotted, with fleshed-out characters and a well-portrayed, interesting setting’ TJ Binyon, Evening Standard
About the author
Giles Blunt grew up in North Bay, Ontario, and now lives in New York City. He’s written scripts for ‘Law & Order’, ‘Street Legal’ and ‘Night Heat’. He is at work on his next crime novel, ‘The Glittering Wood’, also set in the fictional town of Algonquin Bay, and featuring John Cardinal.
www.gilesblunt.com
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Blunt forgoes the shock and violence of his previous crime novel, Forty Words for Sorrow (winner of the British Crime Writers' Macallan Silver Dagger Award), in this standout sequel though one might not think so after reading the grisly opening. Det. John Cardinal of the Algonquin Bay, Ontario, police force is called in to investigate the severed arm of a white male that has been dragged out of the woods by a neighborhood dog. After the remaining pieces of the body turn up and the man is identified as an American citizen, John and his French-Canadian partner, Lise Delorme, are immersed in a case that involves more bodies, a 30-year-old unsolved murder with ties to the violently separatist Qu bec Liberation Front, and clashes among various law enforcement agencies, including the Mounties, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and the local police. There are also the ordinary and extraordinary personal problems of the wonderfully drawn characters. Cardinal's wife is clinically depressed, and his father is sick. Lise's ethnicity does not help her win the trust of the locals. The novel's fascination lies not only in the meticulous unspooling of the plot, but in watching Cardinal and Delorme uncover the lattice of events linking the political clashes of the past and the covered-up crimes of the present. The detectives maneuver gingerly through a beautiful but dangerous landscape frozen beneath the weight of a once-in-a-century ice storm. In a genre where writers often compete to create vile, loathsome villains perpetrating outrageous crimes, Blunt stands as a master craftsman who shows us not only darkness, but also decency.
