By the Time You Read This

Giles Blunt

Some years ago, I read Giles Blunt's breakout novel, Forty Words for Sorrow. It was enjoyable, but nothing terribly memorable; in my review, I likened it to the literary equivalent of a Law and Order episode. Well, here we are a few novels later, and it seems that Giles Blunt (who, it should be noted, was in fact a staff writer for Law and Order and other TV cop shows back in the early nineties) has gotten it figured out-- By the Time You Read This is a good'un.

John Cardinal and Lise Delorme return, this time to solve their toughest case-- the death of John's wife, which everyone (including John, sometimes) believes was a suicide. John uses his bereavement time to put together a case that his wife's death was, in fact, murder, while Lise finds herself embroiled with some particularly nasty child porn photos whose origins have been traced back to Algonquin Bay. Old characters return, new characters pop up, and all's right (or as right as it can be, given the situations everyone involved finds themselves in) with the world.

Blunt has done quite a job with this one. It's a bit slow to start, but once it finds its pace, it chugs along quite nicely. The characters are well-drawn and believable, the plot all fits together (if, in some spots, a bit too neatly; one aspect of By the Time You Read This falls into the world of mystery-novel-cliche, but to tell you which aspect would make for a major spoiler), and Blunt has a built-in plot twist that will keep you confused long after you think you've got the whole thing figured out. A good book, this. If you're a mystery fan and have not yet discovered Giles Blunt, perhaps now's the time to do so.