A homeless woman lies freezing near the entrance of a Montreal parking garage, warmed by crumpled-up newspapers and a Salvation Army sleeping bag. A man dressed in black like a priest approaches, offering a warm drink and a place to rest. She is never seen alive again.
So begins The Dead of Winter, the first novel from Peter Kirby, an Irish-born Montreal lawyer. Shortlisted by Crime Writers of Canada for its Unhanged Arthur Award, celebrating the best unpublished first crime novel, Kirby’s book follows detective inspector Luc Vanier as he relentlessly pursues a serial killer targeting Montreal’s homeless. Everyone seems implicated in the investigation, from high-ranking clergy in Quebec’s Catholic Church and powerful business interests to the staff at a soup kitchen.
One of the pleasures of Kirby’s novel is the setting. In The Dead of Winter, Montreal is colourful and gritty. Thugs and lowlifes rub shoulders with the elite, while the city is pummelled by an endless succession of vicious snowstorms. Unsurprisingly, Kirby is especially adept at describing the inner workings of a law firm that may be involved in a corrupt land deal, and the tricks and loopholes Vanier uses to get his police work done—like convincing a judge to give him a search warrant in “world-record” speed.
Where Kirby’s novel falls a bit flat is in its character development, especially the women. We know Dr. Anjili Segal, the coroner, has an on-again, off-again relationship with Vanier, but we learn almost nothing else about her, save that “her surgical uniform couldn’t hide the curves of a woman in good shape.” Other females are equally opaque. From police officer Sylvie St. Jacques to Vanier’s teenaged daughter Élise to Mme. Collins, a mysterious figure implicated in the investigation, we never learn much of these women, or their motivations.
Vanier himself can border on cliché. He’s a hard-boiled, hard-drinking detective with a troubled past, who spends Christmas Eve alone listening to Patsy Cline in the dark over a glass of Jameson (until he’s pulled away to investigate a murder). This is a well-worn trope of the genre, but Kirby puts Vanier through his paces chasing a killer in a book that’s fast-paced and enjoyable.
Sarah Weinman reviews The Fallen One by Rick Blechta, Dark Matter by R.D. Cain, The Dead of Winter by Peter Kirby, and Zagreb Cowboy by Alen Mattich.
Peter Kirby’s The Dead of Winter (Linda Leith Publishing, 324 pp., $21.95) also doubles as the first mystery outing of Blue Met festival founder Linda Leith’s new publishing house. As such, the stakes are even higher, for a new publisher must announce its sensibility — and the seriousness of its purpose — with its launch title. Fortunately there’s nary a flat foot withThe Dead of Winter, which introduces police detective Luc Vanier and his chosen beat of Montreal.
It’s Christmas Eve, he’s more than a little lonely cranking up the Patsy Cline, pondering a dissolved marriage and a recently fractured relationship, when the inevitable phone call comes: five street people are dead in various Montreal outposts, the speed and frequency suggesting something more sinister than natural causes. And since “crime doesn’t take holidays,” Vanier spends the period between Christmas and New Year’s following a trail of corruption and betrayal starring the Church, the moneyed and the charitable. All the while Vanier reveals himself as a worthy series detective, one who takes his job seriously but doesn’t let self-pity get in the way of living his life — not too much, anyway.
Giller Prize nominee Will Ferguson (419) has read Peter Kirby’s The Dead of Winter. This is what he has to say:
“Taut. Claustrophobic. Compelling. A chilling tale — in every sense of the word. Peter Kirby’s story of murder and its machinations tightens around the reader like a noose.”
It’ll be a memorable launch, Oct 16th, 6-8 p.m., Paragraphe
The Importance of Migration
Global Politics from Homo Sapiens Refugensis to Temporary Foreign Workers in Canada
Discussion and reception, Friday, October 5th, 6 - 8 pm
Z Gallery, 5445 De Gaspé, # 315, Montreal
A discussion with writer/artist/anthropologist Abou Farman and the filmmaker/activist team of Marie Boti and Malcolm Guy
About a time when more people are on the move than any other time in human history, yet restrictions on movement are intensifying; when capital is increasingly mobile and unrestricted, but labour is contained and regulated; when identities are increasingly hybrid but fears of other cultures growing –—
On the occasion of the release of their film and his book:
The End of Immigration? — the new film by Boti and Guy — examines an important new phase in international migration regimes: for the first time, in countries like Canada, the number of temporary foreign workers is exceeding regular immigration numbers.
Clerks of the Passage (Linda Leith Publishing) is Abou Farman’s essay on movement and migration from the earliest bipedals to the history of passports to contemporary surveillance mechanisms.
Free admission.
Clerks of the Passage: on sale for the special price of $17 (tax included). Cash sales only.
For book details and on-line sales of in print and electronic formats: Linda Leith Publishing #mce_temp_url#http://www.lindaleith.com/publishings/view/17; e: linda@lindaleith.com; t: 438-380-5486.
The End of Immigration? For more information and to view an excerpt, visit Productions Multi-Monde at http://www.pmm.qc.ca/english/. To book screenings, t: 514-598-8746.
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Pierre Nepveu, Le Devoir, le 22 septembre 2012
Langue - Au-delà du français menacé
Le français peut-il être autre chose au Québec qu’une « langue menacée » par l’anglicisation ? Est-ce vraiment la seule manière juste d’en parler ? La question se pose au moment où le gouvernement de Pauline Marois se met à l’oeuvre, armé d’un programme qui compte raffermir la Charte de la langue française.
Il y a tout de même un paradoxe à affirmer que les anglophones de Montréal sont « une richesse » pour le Québec et qu’il faut établir des liens « organiques » avec eux, comme l’a affirmé notre première ministre en prenant les commandes de l’État, alors que son propre parti semble incapable, depuis des années, de parler de la présence de l’anglais à Montréal autrement qu’en agitant le spectre de l’« anglicisation ». Cette vision toujours antagoniste, toujours conflictuelle, qui n’est d’ailleurs pas l’apanage du seul Parti québécois, paraît peu invitante, c’est le moins qu’on puisse dire, et on comprend les réticences des milieux anglophones.
Mais c’est le rapport au français parlé à Montréal et au Québec qui se trouve du même coup en cause. Il y a en effet quelque chose de débilitant à répéter jour après jour, comme un mantra, que « notre langue est menacée ». Débilitant, parce qu’à force d’appuyer sans cesse sur ce signal d’alarme, on en vient non seulement à affaiblir le message, mais à appauvrir terriblement la réalité, à oublier ce qu’il y a de positif et de créateur dans le français québécois contemporain, même s’il est trop souvent massacré par trop de locuteurs francophones eux-mêmes, ce qui est une autre histoire…
Tous ces oublis… volontaires?
Comment se fait-il qu’on parle si peu, par exemple, de l’admirable diversité des parlers français à Montréal, avec toutes ses teintes et ses accents haïtiens, maghrébins, libanais, italiens, latino-américains, avec ses intonations africaines ou asiatiques ? Comment se fait-il qu’on ne parle jamais de ces nombreux clients anglophones qui s’adressent en français, oui, en français, aux commis qui les servent dans des boutiques et autres commerces, sans parler des services gouvernementaux ?
Pourquoi la petite dame chinoise qui me vend en français du papier et des enveloppes à la papeterie, les serveurs indiens qui me servent en français mon repas au cari dans l’ouest de la ville, le boucher iranien qui me vend en français du poulet au safran dans le même quartier ou encore l’horloger juif anglophone qui répare ma montre et converse avec moi dans la langue commune du Québec - pourquoi tous ces gens ordinaires n’occupent-ils jamais aucune place dans le discours de « la langue menacée » ?
On connaît la rengaine : c’est le « portrait d’ensemble », le rapport de forces global qui importe, même si ce « portrait » pointe uniquement vers les 5 % ou, au pire, 10 % de cas qui dérogent à cette pratique publique du français. Drôle de portrait d’ensemble, qui oublie d’ailleurs que ces chiffres auraient été trois, quatre ou cinq fois plus élevés il y a trente ou quarante ans…
Richesse de la diversité
Loin de moi l’idée de prendre à la légère le sort et la vitalité du français québécois dans le contexte nord-américain que l’on connaît, mais nous avons l’urgent besoin d’un discours sur la langue qui ne soit pas purement comptable et alarmiste, qui prenne en charge, autrement que du bout des lèvres, la diversité et la richesse linguistique de Montréal : pluralité des langues (dont l’anglais), pluralité des français parlés, sans que l’on néglige pour autant l’objectif de la langue commune.
Il se pourrait que le choix de Mme Diane De Courcy comme ministre responsable de la langue française soit à cet égard de bon augure, elle qui a pu mesurer de près, sur le terrain scolaire, cette effervescence linguistique. Mais il faudra que sa chef et ses collègues cessent de toujours réduire l’anglais à un péril et acceptent que l’« anglicisation » ne soit pas le seul discours possible sur la situation du français à Montréal.
The Dead of Winter by Peter Kirby (Linda Leith Publishing, $21.95)
Wintertime – especially during December and January – can be a cold, cruel and unforgiving time of the year in Montreal.
And for Montreal’s homeless population – especially during what should be a happy, festive time, the Christmas holiday season – Montreal can be even more cold, cruel and unforgiving. And when the bodies of five homeless people turn up dead in different downtown locations (one in Cabot Square, the rest in a couple of Metro stations) on Christmas Eve, it’s up to Montreal police inspector Luc Vanier to find out if it was a case of five isolated tragic deaths or simultaneous murder.
That’s the premise of “The Dead of Winter”, the engrossing debut murder mystery by Montreal lawyer-turned-mystery writer Peter Kirby.
Vanier, an embittered, hard drinking Montreal police detective, willingly sacrifices his Christmas holidays to investigate the five deaths that befell upon Montreal’s most vulnerable citizens. Through his grit, determination and use of old fashioned detective work, Vanier (along with fellow detective Laurent Janvier by his side) get down to the bottom of this murder investigation in the midst of a bitterly cold, snow packed Montreal winter.
He finds out – thanks to a security camera tape at the McGill metro station – that one of the victims was approached by a mysterious stranger dressed in a Santa Claus suit before their murder; then he discovers that the five victims were poisoned with potassium cyanide; then he finds out that the Holy Land Shelter, where the victims spent some time before their deaths, has become a front for a money laundering scheme and its security officer (a former violent offender) was defrauding many of their homeless clients of their social assistance cheques. Throughout this deadly holiday season, Vanier is feverishly on the trail to stop this serial killer before more homeless people become murder victims as well as victims of society.
Kirby received a special honor two years ago by the Crime Writers of Canada, when an earlier draft of the manuscript for “The Dead of Winter” was shortlisted for the Unhanged Arthur Award. After reading the finished product, I can readily see why it got this recognition.
Kirby has managed to make this book a classic police procedural mystery thriller that keeps the reader hooked with every red herring, investigative clue and new development in the case. Luc Vanier is a contemporary version of the veteran police detective who likes to go by the book (and sometimes veer away from it) in order to solve the case, yet carries his fair share of personal and professional demons that sometimes motivates or hinders his modus operandi as a crime solver.
And best of all, the book treats the city of Montreal (especially its downtown core) practically as an essential character to the plot, especially during winter, when it’s at its most coldest and unforgiving. It also gives a sobering look at Montreal’s forgotten citizenry, the homeless population, the life they lead on its streets and the many circumstances to why the ended up homeless and forgotten. As well, it takes a look at the people who undertake the thankless task of aiding the homeless, and the abuses some people do at its many homeless shelters for their own greedy benefit, rather than for the benefit of the people it’s supposed to lend a benevolent hand to.
“The Dead of Winter” is an impressive book by one of the promising new voices in the murder mystery genre. It’s a ferociously crafted piece of crime fiction of how the dark, mean streets of downtown Montreal make victims out of its most helpless citizens.
Terry Mosher launching Was It Good For You? last night at Paragraphe Books, Montreal.
More about the book at http://www.lindaleith.com, with details of the upcoming event with Rick Mercer at the Toronto Reference Library!
Abou Farman on borders and movement
Abou Farman, author of Clerks of the Passage, meditates on borders in response to Stephen Harper’s decision to expel Iranian
The book is now available to purchase in both print and electronic formats on the LLP website: http://www.lindaleith.com/publishings/view/17.
Ramona Koval’s By the Book, coming soon
Australian writer and broadcaster Ramona Koval’s latest is By the Book: A Reader’s Guide to Life. It will be published soon by Text Publishing, and if you’re in Melbourne you should absolutely go to the October 24th launch and buy a copy. Wish I could be there.
http://textpublishing.com.au/books-and-authors/book/by-the-book/
