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Overview
"When the badly decomposed body of thirteen-year-old Katie Pine is found in an abandoned mine shaft on the Chippewa Reserve, John Cardinal can take some small satisfaction in being proved right. It was Cardinal who'd kept the Pine case open, insisting she was no mere runaway, Cardinal who'd been demoted to the burglary squad for his excessive zeal." "Katie Pine isn't the only youngster to have gone missing in the rural town of Algonquin Bay, and Cardinal, brought back to the homicide division after the discovery of her body, is given the go-ahead to reopen the files on three other lost kids. Then another youth is reported missing, and as Cardinal adds his name to the caseload, he begins to see a pattern that screams "serial killer." Meanwhile, the brass have partnered him with Lisa Delorme, newly shifted to Homicide from the Office of Special Investigations, and Cardinal can't help wondering whether she's been sent to keep tabs on him. A guilty conscience makes him think so."--BOOK JACKET.Synopsis
When the badly decomposed body of thirteen-year-old Katie Pine is found in an abandoned mine shaft, John Cardinal is vindicated. It was Cardinal who'd kept the Pine case open - insisting she was no mere runaway - and Cardinal had been demoted to the burglary squad for his excessive zeal. But Katie Pine isn't the only youngster to have gone missing in the rural town of Algonquin Bay, and Cardinal is now given the go-ahead to reopen the files on three other lost kids. When another youth is reported missing, he begins to see a pattern that screams "serial killer."
Meanwhile, the brass have partnered him with Lisa Delorme, newly shifted to homicide from the Office of Special Investigations, and Cardinal can't help but wonder if she's been sent to keep tabs on him. A guilty conscience makes him think so.
Superbly paced, with fully-fleshed characters and utterly convincing police detail, Forty Words for Sorrow is also a novel of place that transcends the genre. Blunt puts us in a small Canadian town in the dead of winter and makes us feel the cold, then turns the cold into a metaphor for the destruction of young lives.
"Blunt has done for Canada's north what James Lee Burke did for Cajun Louisiana." - Margaret Cannon, Toronto Globe and Mail
National Post
This highly readable combination of mystery and suspense (with a sequel already in the works) raises the bar of Canadian crime writing and is a dead certain nomination for multiple writing awards.
Editorials
Bookpage
...he populates his novel with vivid and complex characters....And, as far as villans go, they don't come much more evil than this.Harper's Baazar
Blunt's chilly, gruesome tale gets into the fascinating minutiae of police work without ever losing its grasp on the human element.Booklist
Blunt's handling of procedure...is masterful....A completely absorbing series debut...Tony Hillerman
The highest praise a writer can give another is to say he wishes he had written his book. I wish I had written Forty Words for Sorrow. Giles Blunt has a tremendous talent. If you miss Forty Words for Sorrow, you'll miss one of best novels of 2001.Jonathan Kellerman
40 Words for Sorrow is brilliant—one of the finest crime novels I've ever read. Giles Blunt writes with uncommon grace, style and compassion and he plots like a demon. This book has it all—unforgettable characters, beautiful language, throat-constricting suspense.Lee Child
Intensely vivid characters, terrible crimes, and a brutal deep-frozen landscape all prove beyond a reasonable doubt that cold nurtures good and evil as readily as heat .. and that Giles Blunt is a really tremendous crime novelist.Thomas Perry
Forty Words for Sorrow is a smart, superbly written novel which tests a likeable, fallible pair of investigators with some intriguing ethical questions as they use their considerable skills to solve a set of monstrous and disturbing crimes.Jane Jakeman
Extraordinary for its psychology and tension. The market abounds with serial killer thrillers, which are mostly written by writers who people their lurid worlds with cardboard cutouts, and a book like this shows them up for what they are. 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. Watch out, the Canadians are coming, in crime-writing now as well as in the conventional literary novel.Quill and Quire
Forty Words for Sorrow satisfies right down to the marrow.Globe and Mail
Blunt’s complex plot has history and a lot of nuance. His characters, particularly Cardinal, have the depth and resonance readers demand…don’t read it just because it’s a good crime novel and because once you’ve begun, you won’t put it down until you’re finished. Read it because it’s excellent.National Post
This highly readable combination of mystery and suspense (with a sequel already in the works) raises the bar of Canadian crime writing and is a dead certain nomination for multiple writing awards.Toronto Star
The clues unfold in convincing ways, with no impossible surprises, no flukey bits of luck to defy belief…the final pages present the sort of ending rare in crime fiction, one which compels readers to congratulate everybody in sight — themselves, the book’s characters and particularly the author, Giles Blunt.Edmonton Sun
Giles Blunt creates a frosty world of hidden agendas, prejudices and murder in this fast paced and thought-provoking thriller…Forty Words for Sorrow is a wonderful mystery about human character with murder as the compass.Mystery Review
Cardinal is not especially likeable (no one here is), but he is meatily complex enough to sustain a series. The several plots dovetail skillfully, red herrings and twists are well placed, the narrative has verve and humour.Nugget (North Bay)
[A] riveting tale of twisted minds…Definitely, Blunt is a writer-craftsman. Unlike many crime novels where the plot moves so fast you don’t have time to recognize the poverty of text, Blunt’s writing ability is obvious from the start. He lives comfortably in the world of descriptive, but not overworked phrases and has the ability to weave the elements of the crime into the plot so successfully that one feels one is getting a history lesson, a criminology briefing and a good story all in one…[The characters] are people flawed enough to promise some twists, yet solid and believable enough to move into your neighbourhood of fictional favourites.Library Journal
Detective John Cardinal, once of homicide, now of burglary, has just been reassigned back to homicide and partnered with Lisa Delorme, formerly a detective with the Special Investigations squad. Delorme is investigating Cardinal undercover while ostensibly working with him to locate five missing, possibly dead children and teens in Algonquin Bay, Canada. Convincing police detail and realistic depictions of a Canadian winter combine with a well-paced story and fleshed-out characters to create an enticing and intriguing tale. James Daniels combines tonal variations with changes in pitch to differentiate among the characters. His diction is clear, and his speech is paced to the story. Recommended for popular fiction collections and public libraries with a demand for mysteries set in Canada. Laurie Selwyn, San Antonio P.L. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.Kirkus Reviews
Tiny Algonquin Bay, north of everything except snow, unfortunately has attracted some problems from big-city Toronto. Someone on the police force has been tipping off druglord/counterfeit credit-card kingpin Kyle Corbett about impending raids, and the brutalized body of Katie Pine, the first of three youngsters to go missing over the past year, has just been found embedded in a chunk of ice. Detective John Cardinal, who's eager to be reassigned to the Pine case, gets saddled with Lise Delorme, whose six years with the Office of Special Investigation never brought her any hands-on murder experience. In fact, she seems as keen on investigating him for the Corbett leaks as on helping with the kids' disappearances. While Lise is mounting a sting operation aimed at reeling in Cardinal for the Corbett infractions and the labs in Toronto are busy analyzing fingerprint and fiber evidence in the disappearances/murders, Keith London, a young tourist stopping in the area on his way west, vanishes, and the amiable, nonviolent town burglar is killed with animal ferocity. Dogged footwork leads Cardinal to an abandoned pump house—and a murderous confrontation—but it is Lise who must rescue him when he is gut-shot at his home days later by the distaff half of a serial-killer partnership. Polished, at times poetic but more frequently horrific, and especially moving in dealing with Cardinal's wife Catherine, hospitalized for depression. Former TV writer Blunt (Cold Eye, not reviewed) is a helluva storyteller, and his John Cardinal probably has a long career ahead of him.Book Details
Published
June 1, 2005
Publisher
Penguin Group (USA)
Pages
368
Format
Paperback
ISBN
9780425206928