Review of The Delicate Storm by Giles Blunt (2003, Harper Collins)

During a false spring, pieces of a body are discovered in woods outside of Algonquin Bay in Northern Ontario. Detective John Cardinal is assigned the case, but struggles to find leads. His efforts are not helped by the interference of the Mounties and secret service, neither of whom seem keen on solving the mystery. A few days later the body of a young doctor is found naked, seemingly raped. Cardinal’s partner Lisa Delorme picks up that case, but also makes little progress. Once Cardinal’s victim is identified there’s a lead to grasp onto which points back to events in Montreal thirty years before and an act of terrorism that derailed the Quebec independence movement and had lasting repercussions for policing and security. The only people who seem interested in revisiting what happened were the victim and Cardinal and Delorme and someone has done a reasonable job of evading evidence.

The Delicate Storm is the second book in the Cardinal and Delorme procedural series set in Northern Ontario. In this outing they are investigating two deaths, a dismembered man and a young female doctor, both found in woods outside of Algonquin Bay. Neither appear to be straightforward and progress is slow, not helped by inter-agency intransience. Following the trail of the dead man leads them to Montreal and acts of political violence that gripped and shocked the nation in 1970. Blunt puts in play all the ingredients for a decent police procedural meets political thriller. However, after a decent start the story starts to lose its way. In the middle section, when the tale moves to Montreal the pace drops to a crawl and the story becomes a drawn out political history lesson on Quebec separatists and specific events. It’s interesting in its way, but is way too much tell and not show. After that, the tale winds to an underwhelming denouement, with the excitement coming more from it taking place in an ice storm rather than the mystery. What saves the story to an extent is the revealing of some of Cardinal and Delorme’s back story, with some nice character development. Overall, however, a tale that had lots of potential suspense that starts well then slowly fizzles out.