Book Review The Walker on the Cape by Harold N. Walters in the Clarenville Packet

Harold Walters is a Newfoundland writer, humourist and book reviewer. His columns appear all over NL. This one appears in the Clarenville Packet.

BOOK ReMARKS

By: Harold N. Walters

The Walker on the Cape

Silly me, when I first heard of The Walker on the Cape [Baico Publishing Inc.] I assumed it was a spooky story of sorts, you know, with some mysterious creepy guy, or ghost, or something, wandering around in the fog and scaring the bejabbers out of folks on the cape.

Of course, that isn’t the case. Mike Martin’s novel [www.walkeronthecape.com] is a straight forward murder story. Elias Martin who habitually takes his morning constitutional on the Cape hiking trail is found dead. First off, peopled figure Elias has been felled by a heart attack.

But you know better, eh b’ys?

Walker is a murder story so, at best [!], a heart attack would have to be induced by something nasty. As it turns out, the nasty is…well, I’m not saying.

Back to page one, Chapter One.

Writers try like Dickens to open their stories with a hook, some tasty bait to catch and hold the reader’s attention.

Martin hooked me in the first paragraph with a description of Elias’ breakfast of, along with porridge, “thick molasses bread smothered in partridge berry jam.”

I knew I wouldn’t be able to fault a book that commenced with patch-a-berry jam bread; although rather than molasses I’d prefer inch-thick gobs of butter.

And another thing…

Readers bring their past lives to whatever they read, which explains—I s’pose—why there is no accounting for the memories a story stirs up even when it has no idea it’s doing so.

Knowing I’d be scribbling about this book in the morning, last night before nodding off I reflected on its contents and eventually fell asleep to dream prodigious dreams about Mounties.

Why Mounties?

The main character in Walker is Sergeant Winston Windflower, a Mountie from Pink Lake Alberta now stationed in Grand Bank, Newfoundland.

That’s not the Mountie I dreamed about though. I dreamed about a different Alberta—I think—Mountie whose misfortune it was to track down and kill his own brother, way up in the Canadian Rockies, near a place called Arroyo.

When I was a wee bay-boy my Pappy used to sing a song called “The Young Mountie’s Prayer,” a popular radio tune at the time sung by—maybe—Wilf Carter or, more likely, Yodeling Slim Clark.

You remember Yodelling Slim, eh?

This morning, haunted—kinda—by lines from the song, I went YouTubing and, sure enough, found a feller strumming his guitar and crooning just like Wilf, or Yodeling Slim, whoever.

Mike, bet a loonie you didn’t foresee your book cranking up my noggin and blowing the carbon off long-idle synapses containing embedded scraps of ancient cowboy ballads.

Back to the book.

Sergeant Windflower learns that old Elias didn’t die of a heart attack. He died because…well, I’m not saying.

Elias’ death is deemed a homicide; therefore, Windflower is required to open an investigation, always the first step in solving a crime.

Windflower knows what truly killed Elias but he is unfamiliar with the nature of the…well, of the weapon. Feeling it’s necessary that he know all that he can about the deadly characteristics of the…weapon…, Windflower decides to delve into some detailed research. The first place he checks—bless his young Mountie heart—is Wikipedia!

Hey, Walker is a “modern” murder yarn.

The circumstances leading up to Elias’ murder are as shrouded in mystery [!] as Grand Bank is shrouded in fog, but Windflower perseveres in his investigation and eventually—as when fog dissipates—all is revealed.

And—Ohhh!—the stuff that’s revealed about the goings-on in Grand Bank. There’s illicit this-and-that all over the place. Enough to keep kitchen peepers almost permanently peeking through their cotton curtains.

Windflower is not alone in his investigation of Elias’ murder. He is assisted by Constable Eddie Tizzard, a young Mountie whose prayers [!] of being involved in and solving a heinous crime are answered by his role as Windflower’s right-hand man. Young Tizzard is painfully eager—kinda like Odie the dog of comic strip fame.

Mind how your Literature teachers used to insist that stories should send a message, should be—p’raps—cautionary tales with sage advice to heed and morals to absorb?

Well, Walker is a cautionary tale—sorta.

Throughout the story it’s occasionally necessary for Windflower to drive the highway between Grand Bank and Marystown. En route he is ever conscious of the possibility of encountering humongous wildlife on the highway, so…

…so, the message of this book is—Mind the moose!

Thank you for reading.

ghwalters@persona.ca or ghwalters663@gmail.com

DUNVILLE, NL

SEPTEMBER 20-12