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book review

The Trap

By Melanie Raabe, translated by Imogen Taylor

House of Anansi, 312 pages, $19.95

House of Anansi's wonderful mystery list – Spiderline – continues with this marvellous debut by German author Melanie Raabe. This one has everything: intriguing characters, a great sense of place that grounds the action, and a devious and enthralling plot. Linda Conrads is a famous and much-loved novelist who hasn't set foot outside her house for more than 10 years. She lives in a comfortable but very fragile cocoon beset by fears no one knows. Years before she found her sister Anna dying in a pool of blood, the murderer fleeing. What did Linda see? Could she recognize her sister's killer? Then one day on television the face appears – the killer turns out to be a well-known journalist. Linda dreams of revenge but she's a hermit, trapped in her own home. So she sets a trap for him using what she does best: the plot of her new novel. But the trap she sets may snap shut on her before she catches a killer. This is a perfect by-the-lake book.

Seven Days Dead

By John Farrow

Minotaur Books, 298 pages, $36.99

John Farrow, nom de plume of Trevor Ferguson, returns to his Montreal crime series and his Detective Emile Cinq-Mars for another of his Storm murders. This one opens with a small boat racing through raging seas on its way to Grand Manan Island. It's summer and Emile Cinq-Mars is enjoying his well-deserved holiday but it appears that murder will find him wherever he goes. Montreal is Farrow's natural habitat and I miss his romance with old stone and snow but Grand Manan is a fine spot for a murder linked to family secrets and a village full of suspects. The setting was good enough for Timothy Findley's foray into mystery and it suits Farrow as well. He's also well up on his investigative technique, which gives his series heft. This is the best of the batch.

Triggerfish

By Dietrich Kalteis

ECW, 264 pages, $14.95

There's a subset of crime novels that celebrates machismo in all its tough and tawdry glory. Triggerfish, along with Kalteis's other novels, is part of that and, if you like hard sex, tough talk, motorcycles, guns and boys with toys, this is your meat. Done well, it's the late, great James Crumley. Kalteis doesn't go that far, but he goes far enough. The renegade ex-cop is Rene Beckman, dishonoured and disowned by his Vancouver compatriots. He's got a hot new lover who's an ecology expert and a snappy new boat called the Triggerfish, which is his real love. Before you can say "set sail" there's a confrontation with bad guys from a dangerous drug cartel and lots of roaring and fighting. Then it's an encounter with a motorcycle gang, a trip down Vancouver's back streets and an encounter with his old pals on the VPD force. This book is no British cozy but if you like your crime hard and fast, Kalteis is for you.

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