***2025 Summer: Murder Across Canada***
Alberta
It is very pleasurable to read a mystery set in your own stomping grounds when it is done well. Fradkin is not from Alberta, but she described it accurately and resisted the temptation to make Albertans look like unsophisticated rednecks. We've got them and they are loud, but they aren't the only demographic. The author has obviously done her homework and spent some time here. For example, her description of Calgary traffic felt very genuine. As I read, I got evocative descriptions of Drumheller, the Royal Tyrell Museum, and the Badlands, places where I spent my childhood. Reminders of the dust, the cacti, the delicate flowers, and the blazing heat. The people are hardy, opinionated, and individualistic. We do have a laser focus on the oil & gas industry, but are still connected to our agricultural roots. This is portrayed well in the novel.
I know that I jumped into this series at book 4, so I don't have all of the backstory of the main character, Amanda Doucette. I'm still not sure how I feel about her bull in a china shop approach to information gathering. She is far more aggressive than I would be comfortable with, but I know people like her and in fact may be related to some. I was also annoyed with her treatment of her friend Matthew. I had to convince myself that he kept volunteering to be taken advantage of, but it didn't make me any happier. I did wonder about Amanda's charitable work, which she seemed to be willing to delegate to everyone else. It didn't seem to matter much to her.
Fortunately I never felt like I was missing important story details. Fradkin seeded the necessary knowledge from the earlier books into the narrative. The only thing I might have benefited from was a bit more detail on the Nigerian experience that altered Amanda's life. I could empathize with her desire to find her uncle, having done family history research. It's easy to get fixated on the hunt and end up doing things outside your normal behaviour.
The climactic chapter had me reading frantically to figure out who did what. The mystery itself was sufficiently intriguing, with the clues leading me astray just as they were meant to. A good read.
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