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John Cardinal and Lise Delorme Mystery #1
Forty Words for Sorrow
The first in a series of spine-chilling thrillers featuring Detective John Cardinal and enjoying international raves!
When four teenagers go missing in the small northern town of Algonquin Bay, the extensive police investigation comes up empty. Everyone is ready to give up except Detective John Cardinal, an all-too-human loner whose persistence only serves to get him removed from Homicide. Haunted by a criminal secret in his own past, and hounded by a special investigation into corruption on the force, Cardinal is on the brink of losing his career — and his family.
Then the mutilated body of thirteen-year-old Katie Pine is pulled out of an abandoned mineshaft. And only Cardinal is willing to consider the horrific that this quiet town is home to the most vicious of serial killers. With the media, the provincial police and his own department questioning his every move, Cardinal follows increasingly tenuous threads towards the unthinkable. Time isn't only running out for him, but for another young victim, tied up in a basement wondering how and when his captors will kill him.
Evoking the Canadian winter and the hearts of the killers and cops in icily realistic prose, Giles Blunt has produced a masterful crime novel.
Winner of the British Crime Writers Association's Macallan Silver Dagger for Fiction
Shortlisted for the Arthur Ellis Award
Hardcover has been published in the US and UK to stellar reviews
When four teenagers go missing in the small northern town of Algonquin Bay, the extensive police investigation comes up empty. Everyone is ready to give up except Detective John Cardinal, an all-too-human loner whose persistence only serves to get him removed from Homicide. Haunted by a criminal secret in his own past, and hounded by a special investigation into corruption on the force, Cardinal is on the brink of losing his career — and his family.
Then the mutilated body of thirteen-year-old Katie Pine is pulled out of an abandoned mineshaft. And only Cardinal is willing to consider the horrific that this quiet town is home to the most vicious of serial killers. With the media, the provincial police and his own department questioning his every move, Cardinal follows increasingly tenuous threads towards the unthinkable. Time isn't only running out for him, but for another young victim, tied up in a basement wondering how and when his captors will kill him.
Evoking the Canadian winter and the hearts of the killers and cops in icily realistic prose, Giles Blunt has produced a masterful crime novel.
Winner of the British Crime Writers Association's Macallan Silver Dagger for Fiction
Shortlisted for the Arthur Ellis Award
Hardcover has been published in the US and UK to stellar reviews
388 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published June 19, 2000
289 people are currently reading
5334 people want to read
About the author
Giles Blunt
17 books410 followersGiles Blunt (born 1952 in Windsor, Ontario) is a Canadian novelist and screenwriter. His first novel, Cold Eye, was a psychological thriller set in the New York art world, which was made into the French movie Les Couleurs du diable (Allain Jessua, 1997).
He is also the author of the John Cardinal novels, set in the small town of Algonquin Bay, in Northern Ontario. Blunt grew up in North Bay, and Algonquin Bay is North Bay very thinly disguised — for example, Blunt retains the names of major streets and the two lakes (Trout Lake and Lake Nipissing) that the town sits between, the physical layout of the two places is the same, and he describes Algonquin Bay as being in the same geographical location as North Bay.
The first Cardinal story, Forty Words for Sorrow, won the British Crime Writers' Silver Dagger, and the second, The Delicate Storm, won the Crime Writers of Canada's Arthur Ellis Award for best novel.
More recently he has written No Such Creature, a "road novel" set in the American southwest, and Breaking Lorca, which is set in a clandestine jail in El Salvador in the 1980s. His novels have been compared to the work of Ian Rankin and Cormac McCarthy.
Series:
* John Cardinal and Lise Delorme Mystery
Awards:
Arthur Ellis Award
◊ Best Novel (2004): The Delicate Storm
Crime Writers' Association Silver Dagger
◊ 2001: Forty Words for Sorrow
He is also the author of the John Cardinal novels, set in the small town of Algonquin Bay, in Northern Ontario. Blunt grew up in North Bay, and Algonquin Bay is North Bay very thinly disguised — for example, Blunt retains the names of major streets and the two lakes (Trout Lake and Lake Nipissing) that the town sits between, the physical layout of the two places is the same, and he describes Algonquin Bay as being in the same geographical location as North Bay.
The first Cardinal story, Forty Words for Sorrow, won the British Crime Writers' Silver Dagger, and the second, The Delicate Storm, won the Crime Writers of Canada's Arthur Ellis Award for best novel.
More recently he has written No Such Creature, a "road novel" set in the American southwest, and Breaking Lorca, which is set in a clandestine jail in El Salvador in the 1980s. His novels have been compared to the work of Ian Rankin and Cormac McCarthy.
Series:
* John Cardinal and Lise Delorme Mystery
Awards:
Arthur Ellis Award
◊ Best Novel (2004): The Delicate Storm
Crime Writers' Association Silver Dagger
◊ 2001: Forty Words for Sorrow
Ratings & Reviews
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Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 485 reviews
December 15, 2021
Es herrscht tiefster Winter in Kanada. Die Temperaturen liegen weit unter dem Gefrierpunkt. Da wird in einem Minenschacht die Leiche eines kleinen Mädchens gefunden, festgefroren in einem Eisblock. Das Kind wurde ermordet. Es werden noch weitere Kinder und Jugendliche in der Kleinstadt vermisst, und Detective John Cardinal glaubt, es hier mit einem Serientäter zu tun zu haben…
* Meine Meinung *
Dieser Thriller beschert seinen Lesern wahrlich eine Gänsehaut. Eigentlich beginnt die Geschichte noch relativ harmlos. Man lernt die Figuren kennen, erfährt etwas über deren Hintergrund, so dass man schnell ein genaues Bild bekommt.
Dann wird die erste Leiche gefunden – grausam verstümmelt.
Spätestens aber, wenn man die Passagen über den Mörder liest, gefriert das Blut in den Adern. So viel Grausamkeit, so viel Hass und Gewaltbereitschaft…
Dieser Thriller ist wohl nicht geeignet für Leser mit schwachen Nerven. Dabei ist die Geschichte nicht wirklich blutrünstig, aber die Taten und Gedanken des Mörders sind schon schwer zu begreifen.
Der Thriller ist durchdacht und intelligent und superspannend. Auch, wenn man schon früh erfährt, wer der Mörder ist, so ist die Spannung trotzdem immer da!
Man hofft beim Lesen einfach nur, dass der Täter gefunden wird, bevor er sein nächstes Opfer weiter foltern und sogar töten kann…
Auch gibt es zwei weitere Handlungen in diesem Buch, die gut in die Geschichte einfließen. Und zwar wird während der Suche nach dem Mörder auch noch gegen Detective John Cardinal selbst ermittelt – er steht unter Verdacht, einem Kriminellen polizeiinterne Informationen zugespielt zu haben. Und zusätzlich plagt den Detective noch die Sorge um seine kranke Frau Catherine…
Insgesamt ein wirklich sehr empfehlenswertes Buch, das spannende Lesestunden garantiert.
* Meine Meinung *
Dieser Thriller beschert seinen Lesern wahrlich eine Gänsehaut. Eigentlich beginnt die Geschichte noch relativ harmlos. Man lernt die Figuren kennen, erfährt etwas über deren Hintergrund, so dass man schnell ein genaues Bild bekommt.
Dann wird die erste Leiche gefunden – grausam verstümmelt.
Spätestens aber, wenn man die Passagen über den Mörder liest, gefriert das Blut in den Adern. So viel Grausamkeit, so viel Hass und Gewaltbereitschaft…
Dieser Thriller ist wohl nicht geeignet für Leser mit schwachen Nerven. Dabei ist die Geschichte nicht wirklich blutrünstig, aber die Taten und Gedanken des Mörders sind schon schwer zu begreifen.
Der Thriller ist durchdacht und intelligent und superspannend. Auch, wenn man schon früh erfährt, wer der Mörder ist, so ist die Spannung trotzdem immer da!
Man hofft beim Lesen einfach nur, dass der Täter gefunden wird, bevor er sein nächstes Opfer weiter foltern und sogar töten kann…
Auch gibt es zwei weitere Handlungen in diesem Buch, die gut in die Geschichte einfließen. Und zwar wird während der Suche nach dem Mörder auch noch gegen Detective John Cardinal selbst ermittelt – er steht unter Verdacht, einem Kriminellen polizeiinterne Informationen zugespielt zu haben. Und zusätzlich plagt den Detective noch die Sorge um seine kranke Frau Catherine…
Insgesamt ein wirklich sehr empfehlenswertes Buch, das spannende Lesestunden garantiert.
February 14, 2020
***Basis for the hit Canadian TV series Cardinal.***
”It gets dark early in Algonquin Bay. The forty-sixth parallel may not be all that far north; you can be much farther north and still be in the United States, and even London, England, is a few degrees closer to the North Pole. But this is Ontario, Canada, we’re talking about, and Algonquin Bay in February is the very definition of winter: Algonquin Bay is snowbound, Algonquin Bay is quiet, Algonquin Bay is very, very cold.”
Billy Campbell and Karine Vanasse star in the hit series based off the books.
John Cardinal thought he was permanently booted off murder cases until a young girl, viciously murdered, is found. Despite his boss’s animosity, he knows that Cardinal is the best chance for the department to catch a killer. He is assigned a new detective who just transferred over from the Canadian equivalent of the US IA department. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist brain for Cardinal to realize that Lise Delorme is his partner to investigate him.
But even if your dirty, Cardinal, solve the case.
His wife, Catherine, is suffering from mental illness, which is proving a constant distraction for him. ”Catherine was his California--she was his sunlight and wine and blue ocean--but a strain of madness ran through her like a fault line, and Cardinal lived in fear that one day it would topple their life beyond all hope of recovery.”
Besides the fact that Delorme is probably investigating, well almost certainly investigating, him, she is also attractive. ”Delorme had a disturbing tendency to hold your gaze just a little too long, just a split second too long with those earnest brown eyes. Well, it was as if she’d slipped her hand inside your shirt.
In short, Delorme was a terrible thing to do to a married man. And Cardinal had other reasons to fear her.”
So his wife is in treatment, and he misses her tenderness. His partner is hot and investigating him. He is stressed to the max because he is trying to catch a serial killer with no serious leads, and he is Catholic, so any guilt he might feel about anything he has done in the past weighs on him like a thousand pounds of Bibles.
The randomness of how most serial killers pick their victims makes it almost impossible to catch them. A detective has to hope for a mistake. The question is, will Cardinal get a break in the killings case before Delorme gets a break in the case against him? Will Cardinal succumb to desire and do the be-bop bang with Delorme and possibly crater a marriage that is very important to him? Will the killer kill again before Cardinal can string together enough slender leads to stop him/her?
This is a bit of a slow burn, but it fits the story because Algonquin Bay is a relatively remote area, and the constant snow slows everything down. In that regard, it reminds me of some mysteries I’ve read in Iceland. Cardinal is a Scotch and Jazz man who broods with the best of them. He has reached a point in his life where he has accumulated some regrets, and as he sorts through them, he has to finally decide what he can live with and what he can’t.
The three seasons of the TV series is available on HULU, which I don’t currently have, so I will have to wait for it to show up on one of the many platforms I already subscribe to. Patience is a virtue I’ve been told, and maybe I will have time to read another book or two in the series before venturing into the small screen interpretations.
If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten
”It gets dark early in Algonquin Bay. The forty-sixth parallel may not be all that far north; you can be much farther north and still be in the United States, and even London, England, is a few degrees closer to the North Pole. But this is Ontario, Canada, we’re talking about, and Algonquin Bay in February is the very definition of winter: Algonquin Bay is snowbound, Algonquin Bay is quiet, Algonquin Bay is very, very cold.”
Billy Campbell and Karine Vanasse star in the hit series based off the books.
John Cardinal thought he was permanently booted off murder cases until a young girl, viciously murdered, is found. Despite his boss’s animosity, he knows that Cardinal is the best chance for the department to catch a killer. He is assigned a new detective who just transferred over from the Canadian equivalent of the US IA department. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist brain for Cardinal to realize that Lise Delorme is his partner to investigate him.
But even if your dirty, Cardinal, solve the case.
His wife, Catherine, is suffering from mental illness, which is proving a constant distraction for him. ”Catherine was his California--she was his sunlight and wine and blue ocean--but a strain of madness ran through her like a fault line, and Cardinal lived in fear that one day it would topple their life beyond all hope of recovery.”
Besides the fact that Delorme is probably investigating, well almost certainly investigating, him, she is also attractive. ”Delorme had a disturbing tendency to hold your gaze just a little too long, just a split second too long with those earnest brown eyes. Well, it was as if she’d slipped her hand inside your shirt.
In short, Delorme was a terrible thing to do to a married man. And Cardinal had other reasons to fear her.”
So his wife is in treatment, and he misses her tenderness. His partner is hot and investigating him. He is stressed to the max because he is trying to catch a serial killer with no serious leads, and he is Catholic, so any guilt he might feel about anything he has done in the past weighs on him like a thousand pounds of Bibles.
The randomness of how most serial killers pick their victims makes it almost impossible to catch them. A detective has to hope for a mistake. The question is, will Cardinal get a break in the killings case before Delorme gets a break in the case against him? Will Cardinal succumb to desire and do the be-bop bang with Delorme and possibly crater a marriage that is very important to him? Will the killer kill again before Cardinal can string together enough slender leads to stop him/her?
This is a bit of a slow burn, but it fits the story because Algonquin Bay is a relatively remote area, and the constant snow slows everything down. In that regard, it reminds me of some mysteries I’ve read in Iceland. Cardinal is a Scotch and Jazz man who broods with the best of them. He has reached a point in his life where he has accumulated some regrets, and as he sorts through them, he has to finally decide what he can live with and what he can’t.
The three seasons of the TV series is available on HULU, which I don’t currently have, so I will have to wait for it to show up on one of the many platforms I already subscribe to. Patience is a virtue I’ve been told, and maybe I will have time to read another book or two in the series before venturing into the small screen interpretations.
If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten
December 26, 2016
I accidentally read book 3 in this series first and it was so good I just had to go back to the start and read book 1.
I really enjoy the setting of this series in Canada and I like the frequent references to topics like the Mounties, the French/Canadian divide and the situation regarding the native Indian population. The main characters are good to, slightly flawed but interesting people just like in real life.
Combine all this with a cracking good story, a spot of internal intrigue and some good solid police work and you have a very readable book. Four stars from me and onwards to book 2.
I really enjoy the setting of this series in Canada and I like the frequent references to topics like the Mounties, the French/Canadian divide and the situation regarding the native Indian population. The main characters are good to, slightly flawed but interesting people just like in real life.
Combine all this with a cracking good story, a spot of internal intrigue and some good solid police work and you have a very readable book. Four stars from me and onwards to book 2.
April 4, 2018
**UPDATE MAY 2017** A TV series, Cardinal, is now broadcast on Canada's CTV network. The first season is complete; the second and third are ordered. We'll get this at least on Hulu. These are good stories.
Rating: 3.75* of five
The Publisher Says: When the decomposed body of 13-year-old Katie Pine is found in an abandoned mine shaft, Detective John Cardinal is vindicated. He'd kept the Pine case open, and was demoted for his zeal. But Katie isn't the only youngster to disappear in the Canadian town of Algonquin Bay. Cardinal is allowed to reopen the files on three other lost kids. When another youth goes missing, he sees a pattern that screams serial killer.
My Review: **WARNING: GRAPHIC AND HORRIFYING SADISTIC VIOLENCE** (The book, not the review.)
The first John Cardinal mystery, we're introduced to Detective Cardinal as he is reassigned to Homicide after being yanked into burglaries and other such unglamourous pursuits for daring to investigate the strange disappearances of several very young people in fictional Algonquin Bay, Ontario. The disappearees all have in common the fact they're run away before, not an unusual thing there in Algonquin Bay, which is a central exchange point for rail, bus, and highway travel for the whole country. Cardinal smells something wrong, though, and spends the town's resources too freely for his boss's comfort...until suddenly one of those disappearees turns up "all corpisfied and gross" (to quote a character on the late, lamented TV show Firefly). Cardinal is brought back to Homicide, with a new partner called Lise. She just happens to be on her first murder investigation, rewarded for her huge success in nailing a corrupt politician as the result of a special forensic accounting investigation.
And spying on Cardinal for Internal Affairs. There's a pickle to be in: Spying on your popular partner to see if he really committed a crime some years back and, if so, to rat him out to persons possibly untrustworthy. Go Lise! Way to start a new life!
Meanwhile, the author lets us in on the doings of the murderous in real time; feeds us clues to Cardinal's sad and stressful past and present; prefigures several inevitable moments in the pursuit of a sociopath; and blows up the entire power structure of the town. All comes out, surprisingly, better than the worst and not even all that bad.
This really shouldn't be marketed as a mystery. We know whodunit and whydunit. It's a chase thriller, and a good one. The violence warned of above is upsetting to me due to its victims being kids. In the end, Blunt's coolly presented, razor-edged prose and his vile, horrible imagination kept me awake and flopping from side to side in agonized suspense until I reached the end of the book. It was harrowing and horrible! I can't wait to read the next one!
Rating: 3.75* of five
The Publisher Says: When the decomposed body of 13-year-old Katie Pine is found in an abandoned mine shaft, Detective John Cardinal is vindicated. He'd kept the Pine case open, and was demoted for his zeal. But Katie isn't the only youngster to disappear in the Canadian town of Algonquin Bay. Cardinal is allowed to reopen the files on three other lost kids. When another youth goes missing, he sees a pattern that screams serial killer.
My Review: **WARNING: GRAPHIC AND HORRIFYING SADISTIC VIOLENCE** (The book, not the review.)
The first John Cardinal mystery, we're introduced to Detective Cardinal as he is reassigned to Homicide after being yanked into burglaries and other such unglamourous pursuits for daring to investigate the strange disappearances of several very young people in fictional Algonquin Bay, Ontario. The disappearees all have in common the fact they're run away before, not an unusual thing there in Algonquin Bay, which is a central exchange point for rail, bus, and highway travel for the whole country. Cardinal smells something wrong, though, and spends the town's resources too freely for his boss's comfort...until suddenly one of those disappearees turns up "all corpisfied and gross" (to quote a character on the late, lamented TV show Firefly). Cardinal is brought back to Homicide, with a new partner called Lise. She just happens to be on her first murder investigation, rewarded for her huge success in nailing a corrupt politician as the result of a special forensic accounting investigation.
And spying on Cardinal for Internal Affairs. There's a pickle to be in: Spying on your popular partner to see if he really committed a crime some years back and, if so, to rat him out to persons possibly untrustworthy. Go Lise! Way to start a new life!
Meanwhile, the author lets us in on the doings of the murderous in real time; feeds us clues to Cardinal's sad and stressful past and present; prefigures several inevitable moments in the pursuit of a sociopath; and blows up the entire power structure of the town. All comes out, surprisingly, better than the worst and not even all that bad.
This really shouldn't be marketed as a mystery. We know whodunit and whydunit. It's a chase thriller, and a good one. The violence warned of above is upsetting to me due to its victims being kids. In the end, Blunt's coolly presented, razor-edged prose and his vile, horrible imagination kept me awake and flopping from side to side in agonized suspense until I reached the end of the book. It was harrowing and horrible! I can't wait to read the next one!
July 25, 2025
What happened to the fabled northern Ontario butter tarts?
Truly nasty psychopathic serial killer? Check.
Dirty cop sub-plot? Check.
Internal police politics and inter-agency squabbling? Check.
Superb characterization and just a hint of misplaced romance? Check.
Magnificent, spot-on accurate description of an atmospheric setting with plenty of local colour? Check.
Some typical complementary Canadiana from a new Canadian author? Check, eh!
Algonquin Bay is a small city in northern Ontario and its young people are squarely in the sights of a skilled serial killer and his demented partner who are eluding the best efforts of an intensely focused manhunt. But, surprisingly, if you're looking for a nail-biting suspense thriller, "FORTY WORDS FOR SORROW" definitely won't fill the bill. On the other hand, if you're looking for a profound combination of psychological thriller and police procedural, Giles Blunt has definitely scored a home-run with this novel debuting the partnership of John Cardinal and Lise Delorme. They're not quite as angsty as Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch but they're definitely edgy with lots of quirks to build on. As you are pulled more deeply into the story, I'm sure you'll agree that comparisons like this are both inevitable and well-deserved.
And when you get to that first-rate ending, you'll understand (with considerable gratitude) that there's lots of mileage left in the Cardinal-Delorme partnership and more exciting novels to come.
Highly recommended.
Paul Weiss
Truly nasty psychopathic serial killer? Check.
Dirty cop sub-plot? Check.
Internal police politics and inter-agency squabbling? Check.
Superb characterization and just a hint of misplaced romance? Check.
Magnificent, spot-on accurate description of an atmospheric setting with plenty of local colour? Check.
Some typical complementary Canadiana from a new Canadian author? Check, eh!
Algonquin Bay is a small city in northern Ontario and its young people are squarely in the sights of a skilled serial killer and his demented partner who are eluding the best efforts of an intensely focused manhunt. But, surprisingly, if you're looking for a nail-biting suspense thriller, "FORTY WORDS FOR SORROW" definitely won't fill the bill. On the other hand, if you're looking for a profound combination of psychological thriller and police procedural, Giles Blunt has definitely scored a home-run with this novel debuting the partnership of John Cardinal and Lise Delorme. They're not quite as angsty as Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch but they're definitely edgy with lots of quirks to build on. As you are pulled more deeply into the story, I'm sure you'll agree that comparisons like this are both inevitable and well-deserved.
And when you get to that first-rate ending, you'll understand (with considerable gratitude) that there's lots of mileage left in the Cardinal-Delorme partnership and more exciting novels to come.
Highly recommended.
Paul Weiss
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March 20, 2023
Audiobook - 11:15 hours - Narrator: James Daniels
I'm pretty sure this is my first "Canadian" novel and a very good one it is!
4.0 stars - Review to follow.
From my "Reading Activity":
"I think this is probably my first ever novel set in regional Canada, or Canada at all. The Police Procedural is a favourite genre of mine and this novel has held my interest from the start."
I'm pretty sure this is my first "Canadian" novel and a very good one it is!
4.0 stars - Review to follow.
From my "Reading Activity":
"I think this is probably my first ever novel set in regional Canada, or Canada at all. The Police Procedural is a favourite genre of mine and this novel has held my interest from the start."
May 9, 2024
This was an extremely exciting thriller. John Cardinal and Lise Delorme desperately try to find a killer of young kids. Because of his cruelty the press refers to him as Windigo Killer. What is his motif? With hardly any traces investigation is difficult. Our main characters have their own personal problems too and then there is this harsh Canadian weather... you'll join the team of the investigators and soon became acquainted with the killer and learn about nasty details. Do you really want to know this? Definitely not but Giles Blunt writes his outstanding thriller in a way you can't put down the book. Fleshed out characters, a convincing case, great details of police work and a very remote Canadian area. Really enjoyed this mysterious story with its well drawn plot and can highly recommend reading it. This is a top thriller!
August 9, 2021
Picked it up as it seemed a bit wintery and I was in a mood for a crime/thriller set in Canada. It was a very intruiging and intresting case to read about and I liked the other plot as well. Engaging read and I'm excited to have more books in the series to read or binge
November 17, 2015
The first in a series and I'll definitely be looking to read the rest. Well written, well developed main characters. But be prepared, it is extremely graphic.
October 1, 2025
5 Stars. How much do you like mysteries set in locales you know or where you live? I loved this one. Algonquin Bay, actually the small Canadian city of North Bay at the head of Lake Nipissing in north-east Ontario, is the setting. Much of the province shows up including Sudbury, Ottawa and, to the south, Toronto where the Ontario coroner is located. Even a Highway 11 restaurant I have enjoyed! Farther afield, Vancouver and St. John's. Detective John Cardinal is under pressure to find Katie Pine, a 13 year-old Indigenous girl. He has uncovered no clues for weeks. Finally he locates her tragic, frozen, mutilated body in a deserted mine shaft. He and his ambitious young detective partner, Lise Delorme, realize there's a serial killer in their midst. Short of staff, she has been moved from Special Investigations to assist Cardinal. But she has another role here; she is still investigating him - how can he afford to send his daughter to Yale University in the US on a detective's salary? Will Delorme discover something? We follow the two with the knowledge there will be another youthful victim unless they can get their tattered partnership working. Wow. Truly great. (Oc2019/Oc2025)
December 4, 2013
Giles Blunt, Forty Words for Sorrow (Berkeley, 2001)
Giles Blunt first came to the attention of critics everywhere as a staff writer for Law and Order, one of the strongest television series in history. And when reading Blunt's first novel, the reader who is a Law and Order fan is likely to know, even without knowing Blunt's allegiance to the show, that there are similarities. Needless to say, for the Law and Order fan, this means you've pretty much got a free pass on this one; you're going to love it.
John Cardinal is a cop with his career in the toilet and a clinically depressed wife. His usual partner is tied up in court on another case, so Cardinal is assigned another one, Lise Delorme, who's just come to homicide from Special Bureau (Americans, think "internal affairs"). Cardinal, who some folks in the branch suspect of being crooked, immediately suspects she's been paired with him in order to investigate him. But he's got too much on his plate to spend much time worrying about that; first, his wife goes into the hospital with a particularly nasty bout of depression. Second, a body is found in a mineshaft, believed to be that of Katie Pine, a missing girl whom Cardinal always suspected of being murdered; his obsession with her case got him demoted from homicide in the first place. Who can worry about whether you're being investigated by your partner or not?
Perhaps the most intriguing thing about Forty Words for Sorrow is the tension between Cardinal and Delorme, and trying to decide whether a romance is getting underway. The two of them are very deftly handled, and while they seesaw back and forth between being nice to one another and loathing one another, there's never a sense that anything is being exaggerated for the reader; the perils of having a new partner, and one of the opposite sex.
That said, the best-written scenes in the book are those between Cardinal and his wife in the hospital. Cardinal is hopelessly adrift, completely unsure of how to handle himself around her as she struggles in the mire of her depression. Both characters are painted spot-on in these scenes, and they alone are enough to warrant the purchase price of the book.
What's missing from the above two paragraphs is the mystery itself. And, ultimately, the mystery takes a back seat to the characters. This is not a bad thing, as long as the characters can sustain the novel (and they certainly do here). But the end result is that the mystery becomes somewhat predictable, especially for regular watchers of (you knew I'd get round to it sooner or later) Law and Order. The twists and turns in the plot will be easily recognizable to the show's rabid cult following. Again, not that this is a bad thing; in fact, regular Law and Order viewers have come to expect this, and will feel right at home. (Non-regular viewers, or those who have never seen the show, may not find anything here predictable at all.)
A good, solid work, Forty Words for Sorrow, a promising debut from a promising writer. John Cardinal is coming back soon in Blunt's second novel, and if the first one is anything to go on, it will be just as well worth reading. *** ½
Giles Blunt first came to the attention of critics everywhere as a staff writer for Law and Order, one of the strongest television series in history. And when reading Blunt's first novel, the reader who is a Law and Order fan is likely to know, even without knowing Blunt's allegiance to the show, that there are similarities. Needless to say, for the Law and Order fan, this means you've pretty much got a free pass on this one; you're going to love it.
John Cardinal is a cop with his career in the toilet and a clinically depressed wife. His usual partner is tied up in court on another case, so Cardinal is assigned another one, Lise Delorme, who's just come to homicide from Special Bureau (Americans, think "internal affairs"). Cardinal, who some folks in the branch suspect of being crooked, immediately suspects she's been paired with him in order to investigate him. But he's got too much on his plate to spend much time worrying about that; first, his wife goes into the hospital with a particularly nasty bout of depression. Second, a body is found in a mineshaft, believed to be that of Katie Pine, a missing girl whom Cardinal always suspected of being murdered; his obsession with her case got him demoted from homicide in the first place. Who can worry about whether you're being investigated by your partner or not?
Perhaps the most intriguing thing about Forty Words for Sorrow is the tension between Cardinal and Delorme, and trying to decide whether a romance is getting underway. The two of them are very deftly handled, and while they seesaw back and forth between being nice to one another and loathing one another, there's never a sense that anything is being exaggerated for the reader; the perils of having a new partner, and one of the opposite sex.
That said, the best-written scenes in the book are those between Cardinal and his wife in the hospital. Cardinal is hopelessly adrift, completely unsure of how to handle himself around her as she struggles in the mire of her depression. Both characters are painted spot-on in these scenes, and they alone are enough to warrant the purchase price of the book.
What's missing from the above two paragraphs is the mystery itself. And, ultimately, the mystery takes a back seat to the characters. This is not a bad thing, as long as the characters can sustain the novel (and they certainly do here). But the end result is that the mystery becomes somewhat predictable, especially for regular watchers of (you knew I'd get round to it sooner or later) Law and Order. The twists and turns in the plot will be easily recognizable to the show's rabid cult following. Again, not that this is a bad thing; in fact, regular Law and Order viewers have come to expect this, and will feel right at home. (Non-regular viewers, or those who have never seen the show, may not find anything here predictable at all.)
A good, solid work, Forty Words for Sorrow, a promising debut from a promising writer. John Cardinal is coming back soon in Blunt's second novel, and if the first one is anything to go on, it will be just as well worth reading. *** ½
April 30, 2019
This is a gripping thriller, police procedural, and intense psychological drama. Forty Words for Sorrow was published in 2000 and I somehow missed it, although I have read most of the six books in the Cardinal series. Reading this was an intensely emotional experience for me. The latest book was published in 2013 and I am hoping for more to come in the future. I have watched the first two seasons of the Cardinal TV series and have the third recorded and ready.
The atmospheric novel is set in the Algonquin area of Ontario in winter. Vivid descriptions of ice and snow cause one to almost feel the chilling cold. Police officer, John Cardinal, forms a working relationship and friendship with colleague, Lise Delorme, despite his strong suspicion that she has been assigned to investigate him for corruption. The characters are vulnerable and believable. The book is written with realistic dialogue and well plotted. Cardinal is an upstanding Officer but is troubled about a wrong he committed in the past. His wife has periods of deep dark depression.
The police investigation focuses on the plight of three young people who have gone missing from the town. When two of the bodies are discovered, it appears there may be a deranged serial killer or killers searching for more victims. Now an eighteen-year-old young man has vanished from the area while making his way across Canada. Can Cardinal and team rescue him before it is too late? They have no clue about the identity of the person committing these horrendous deeds. The suspense is riveting.
A warning! Some of the gruesome scenes of torture and murder are quite disturbing. The conclusion is very tense, as both Cardinal and Delorme are in mortal danger.
The atmospheric novel is set in the Algonquin area of Ontario in winter. Vivid descriptions of ice and snow cause one to almost feel the chilling cold. Police officer, John Cardinal, forms a working relationship and friendship with colleague, Lise Delorme, despite his strong suspicion that she has been assigned to investigate him for corruption. The characters are vulnerable and believable. The book is written with realistic dialogue and well plotted. Cardinal is an upstanding Officer but is troubled about a wrong he committed in the past. His wife has periods of deep dark depression.
The police investigation focuses on the plight of three young people who have gone missing from the town. When two of the bodies are discovered, it appears there may be a deranged serial killer or killers searching for more victims. Now an eighteen-year-old young man has vanished from the area while making his way across Canada. Can Cardinal and team rescue him before it is too late? They have no clue about the identity of the person committing these horrendous deeds. The suspense is riveting.
A warning! Some of the gruesome scenes of torture and murder are quite disturbing. The conclusion is very tense, as both Cardinal and Delorme are in mortal danger.
February 10, 2018
Excellent introduction to the series set in Algonquin Bay, Ontario (based on North Bay, ON). The setting was a character all by itself. The city cops are interesting and complex. Their interactions with the Mounties and Provincial law enforcement was a timely lesson since I recently researched Canadian immigration. BUT.....
Updated 2/9/18
Updated 2/9/18
April 19, 2019
: I picked up this book based on the recommendation of one of my library patrons who insisted that I read this Canadian mystery series. Of course, I'd heard of Giles Blunt but I had yet to pick up one of his books.
The main story begins when the police find the body of a 13-year-old Indigenous girl police had long ago assumed had runaway. Cardinal had been obsessed with this case in the past and it had damaged his career, but he eagerly takes the case which soon unearths more missing teens and gruesome murders. There's also a secondary story line involving Cardinal's potentially not-so-squeaky-clean past and includes the addition of his new partner, Lise Delorme who, unbeknownst to Cardinal, works for Special Bureau and is investigating him.
Going into this book I expected a mystery, but this is more of a thrilling chase to catch the bad guys since we find the identity of the culprit early on. There's still a good amount of tension but it was more of a slow burn kind of read for me with some aspects of the crime much gorier and sadistic than I had anticipated making me quite squeamish.
Shortly after starting this book, I began recognizing street names and locales that reminded me of North Bay, Ontario - the town where my dad was born and raised, where we had a cottage on Trout Lake and where I still have a lot of family. When I looked into it, I realized that Giles Blunt was a long-time resident of North Bay and Algonquin Bay is, in fact, the thinly disguised city of North Bay. I always enjoy when Canadian authors keep their books in Canada and I especially enjoyed the Canadiana that is sprinkled liberally throughout.
This is a great start to this new-to-me, why-didn't-I-pick-it-up-earlier suspense series. John Cardinal is an intriguing main character who has his share of flaws, a questionable past and a lot on his plate family-wise but is still a guy readers can get behind. The story is a well-written, gritty police procedural filled with grisly crimes and readers will enjoy Cardinal and Delorme's unrelenting chase to find the culprit.
Favourite Quotes: "Eskimos, it is said, have forty different words for snow. Never mind about snow, Cardinal mused, what people really need is forty words for sorrow. Grief. Heartbreak. Desolation."
The main story begins when the police find the body of a 13-year-old Indigenous girl police had long ago assumed had runaway. Cardinal had been obsessed with this case in the past and it had damaged his career, but he eagerly takes the case which soon unearths more missing teens and gruesome murders. There's also a secondary story line involving Cardinal's potentially not-so-squeaky-clean past and includes the addition of his new partner, Lise Delorme who, unbeknownst to Cardinal, works for Special Bureau and is investigating him.
Going into this book I expected a mystery, but this is more of a thrilling chase to catch the bad guys since we find the identity of the culprit early on. There's still a good amount of tension but it was more of a slow burn kind of read for me with some aspects of the crime much gorier and sadistic than I had anticipated making me quite squeamish.
Shortly after starting this book, I began recognizing street names and locales that reminded me of North Bay, Ontario - the town where my dad was born and raised, where we had a cottage on Trout Lake and where I still have a lot of family. When I looked into it, I realized that Giles Blunt was a long-time resident of North Bay and Algonquin Bay is, in fact, the thinly disguised city of North Bay. I always enjoy when Canadian authors keep their books in Canada and I especially enjoyed the Canadiana that is sprinkled liberally throughout.
This is a great start to this new-to-me, why-didn't-I-pick-it-up-earlier suspense series. John Cardinal is an intriguing main character who has his share of flaws, a questionable past and a lot on his plate family-wise but is still a guy readers can get behind. The story is a well-written, gritty police procedural filled with grisly crimes and readers will enjoy Cardinal and Delorme's unrelenting chase to find the culprit.
Favourite Quotes: "Eskimos, it is said, have forty different words for snow. Never mind about snow, Cardinal mused, what people really need is forty words for sorrow. Grief. Heartbreak. Desolation."
September 12, 2020
Outstanding! I discovered the TV Series first and throughly enjoyed it, so I just had to grab the books! Not a disappointment! Love the writing!!
December 30, 2023
Ein sehr spannender Thriller im tiefsten Winter. Dass das erste Opfer indigener Herkunft ist, spielt für den weiteren Verlauf der Geschichte keine Rolle. Hatte ich anders erwartet ( nach dem Klappentext), war aber auch so okay.
Leider kam ich den Ermittlern Cardinal und Delorme noch nicht so richtig nah. Vielleicht kommt das ja in den weiteren Bänden der Reihe noch.
Öfters wurde auch darauf herum geritten, wie hübsch Lise Delorme ist und dass sie so eine tolle Figur hat. Warum wurden ihre Qualitäten als Ermittlerin denn nicht in den Fokus gerückt?? Fand ich irgendwie überflüssig. 🤷🏼♀️
Cardinal ist ein spannender Charakter. Er ist sehr liebevoll zu seiner psychisch kranken Ehefrau. Die Szenen in der Klinik haben mich berührt.
Mega gut war der Sprung in die wechselnde Erzählperspektive der Täter. Das hatte ich nicht erwartet und war sehr überrascht. Ein richtig perfides Duo mit so viel Gewaltbereitschaft und mehr Glück als Verstand!! Hier musste ich bei den Fantasien der beiden öfters tief durch atmen. Ich bin allerdings auch kein geübter Thriller Leser und von daher nicht unbedingt der Maßstab.
Neben dem aktuellen Fall, gibt ein noch einen Fall dahinter, in dem Cardinal Dreck am stecken zu haben scheint und Lise gegen ihn ermitteln soll. Diesen Handlungsstrang fand ich nicht besonders spannend und hätte es meiner Meinung nach auch nicht unbedingt gebraucht. Es trägt halt dazu bei, dass man die Vorsicht der beiden Protagonisten gegenüber dem jeweils anderen besser versteht. Sie sind kein Team ab Minute eins und müssen das Vertrauen ineinander erst aufbauen.
Ich habe gerade den Showdown als echte Achterbahnfahrt erlebt und daher ist das Buch ( trotz ein paar Schwächen) bei 4 Sternen gelandet.
Leider kam ich den Ermittlern Cardinal und Delorme noch nicht so richtig nah. Vielleicht kommt das ja in den weiteren Bänden der Reihe noch.
Öfters wurde auch darauf herum geritten, wie hübsch Lise Delorme ist und dass sie so eine tolle Figur hat. Warum wurden ihre Qualitäten als Ermittlerin denn nicht in den Fokus gerückt?? Fand ich irgendwie überflüssig. 🤷🏼♀️
Cardinal ist ein spannender Charakter. Er ist sehr liebevoll zu seiner psychisch kranken Ehefrau. Die Szenen in der Klinik haben mich berührt.
Mega gut war der Sprung in die wechselnde Erzählperspektive der Täter. Das hatte ich nicht erwartet und war sehr überrascht. Ein richtig perfides Duo mit so viel Gewaltbereitschaft und mehr Glück als Verstand!! Hier musste ich bei den Fantasien der beiden öfters tief durch atmen. Ich bin allerdings auch kein geübter Thriller Leser und von daher nicht unbedingt der Maßstab.
Neben dem aktuellen Fall, gibt ein noch einen Fall dahinter, in dem Cardinal Dreck am stecken zu haben scheint und Lise gegen ihn ermitteln soll. Diesen Handlungsstrang fand ich nicht besonders spannend und hätte es meiner Meinung nach auch nicht unbedingt gebraucht. Es trägt halt dazu bei, dass man die Vorsicht der beiden Protagonisten gegenüber dem jeweils anderen besser versteht. Sie sind kein Team ab Minute eins und müssen das Vertrauen ineinander erst aufbauen.
Ich habe gerade den Showdown als echte Achterbahnfahrt erlebt und daher ist das Buch ( trotz ein paar Schwächen) bei 4 Sternen gelandet.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 21, 2020
This is the second Canadian detective series i read besides the fantastic Louise Penny's Gamache books, it came on my radar in these covid19 infected times after watching the TV show, and i have to admit that i liked it just fine, i certainly had read darker and gorier stories before but the cold dark and freezing setting of Algonquin Bay seemed oddly appropriate, well, book 2 here i come...
May 6, 2016
"Forty Words for Sorrow" is the first novel in an excellent series by an accomplished writer. Early in the book, the reason for its title is made clear. John Cardinal, a homicide cop in a northern Ontario city, has just talked to a woman whose daughter has been murdered. "Eskimos, it is said, have forty different words for snow. Never mind about snow, Cardinal mused, what people really need is forty words for sorrow. Grief. Heartbreak. Desolation. There were not enough for this childless mother in her empty house (p. 37)."
The six John Cardinal-Lise Delorme novels are the best police procedural series that I've read. Blunt writes as well as anyone I've read in any genre. His novels work as novels, not just as thrillers or cop novels. His characters are well drawn, even the secondary and tertiary ones. As examples, look at how economically Cardinal's irritating immediate superior is portrayed. You learn everything that you need to know about the character in a couple of scenes without Blunt turning him into a cardboard figure. Or look at the girlfriend of a young man who is missing and feared dead. She emerges as a believable character in two short scenes, and those scenes reinforce our appreciation for Cardinal's basic humanity. Or look at his creation of a believable, sad character in the killer's accomplice. Blunt's depiction of Algonquin Bay itself (a city of 58,000 two hours north of Toronto, modeled on North Bay, Ontario, where Blunt grew up) makes it seem a real place.
There are several plot lines in this novel. They mesh quite skillfullyly, and that skill marks all of the books in the series. A serial murderer is active in Algonquin Bay. Cardinal knows this fact to be true, even if his superiors do not. How he and his new partner, Lise Delorme, find the killer makes for a riveting novel. There is a rat in the police force who feeds information to a major criminal. This plot arc is not a disconnected addition to the main story, and finding out who it is tells us a lot about Lise Delorme's skills and integrity as she works her way out of internal affairs and onto the homicide squad. John Cardinal carries sorrow because of his wife's bipolar disorder and guilt because he ripped off a big-time drug criminal years before when a cop in Toronto so that he could send his daughter to an expensive university. It doesn't reduce his skills as a homicide investigator, and it doesn't make him less as a man, but it makes his life harder. One of the characters, the young woman he interviews twice, tells him that he is a good person after he risks his life to find her boyfriend. Cardinal can't quite believe it. His wife tells him that his inability to accept praise is a burden for others. It's his heartbeak.
There are six novels so far, written between 2001 and 2012. I look forward to another.
The six John Cardinal-Lise Delorme novels are the best police procedural series that I've read. Blunt writes as well as anyone I've read in any genre. His novels work as novels, not just as thrillers or cop novels. His characters are well drawn, even the secondary and tertiary ones. As examples, look at how economically Cardinal's irritating immediate superior is portrayed. You learn everything that you need to know about the character in a couple of scenes without Blunt turning him into a cardboard figure. Or look at the girlfriend of a young man who is missing and feared dead. She emerges as a believable character in two short scenes, and those scenes reinforce our appreciation for Cardinal's basic humanity. Or look at his creation of a believable, sad character in the killer's accomplice. Blunt's depiction of Algonquin Bay itself (a city of 58,000 two hours north of Toronto, modeled on North Bay, Ontario, where Blunt grew up) makes it seem a real place.
There are several plot lines in this novel. They mesh quite skillfullyly, and that skill marks all of the books in the series. A serial murderer is active in Algonquin Bay. Cardinal knows this fact to be true, even if his superiors do not. How he and his new partner, Lise Delorme, find the killer makes for a riveting novel. There is a rat in the police force who feeds information to a major criminal. This plot arc is not a disconnected addition to the main story, and finding out who it is tells us a lot about Lise Delorme's skills and integrity as she works her way out of internal affairs and onto the homicide squad. John Cardinal carries sorrow because of his wife's bipolar disorder and guilt because he ripped off a big-time drug criminal years before when a cop in Toronto so that he could send his daughter to an expensive university. It doesn't reduce his skills as a homicide investigator, and it doesn't make him less as a man, but it makes his life harder. One of the characters, the young woman he interviews twice, tells him that he is a good person after he risks his life to find her boyfriend. Cardinal can't quite believe it. His wife tells him that his inability to accept praise is a burden for others. It's his heartbeak.
There are six novels so far, written between 2001 and 2012. I look forward to another.
December 14, 2015
I was thrilled to find this book - the writing is gorgeous, the characters interesting, the writer Canadian and it is set in gritty North Ontario.
But it evolved into a Paul Bernardo/Marquis de Sade saga that left me feeling physically ill - and TV shows like Luther and Justified are among my favourites, so it isn't that I don't enjoy dark.
I'd love to read another Giles Blunt novel with a significantly less brutal storyline, but I'm putting this book in the recycling so that no one else has to read it.
But it evolved into a Paul Bernardo/Marquis de Sade saga that left me feeling physically ill - and TV shows like Luther and Justified are among my favourites, so it isn't that I don't enjoy dark.
I'd love to read another Giles Blunt novel with a significantly less brutal storyline, but I'm putting this book in the recycling so that no one else has to read it.
December 15, 2018
A psychological thriller/murder investigation, Forty Words for Sorrow more than took my breath away at intervals. This is a finely-written and plotted story with imagery that will not soon leave my memory.
The Los Angeles Times likened this story to Silence of the Lambs in its ability to reach inside the reader and horrify; I agree. Not for the faint of heart, but definitely for fans of psychological thrillers.
The Los Angeles Times likened this story to Silence of the Lambs in its ability to reach inside the reader and horrify; I agree. Not for the faint of heart, but definitely for fans of psychological thrillers.
November 7, 2023
I saw the first series of Cardinal, the TV adaptation of Forty Words For Sorrow, a few years ago and enjoyed the way it created an atmosphere of distrust and threat that was partly embodied by the fierce cold weather in which most of the action took place.
It turns out that the TV version was fairly faithful to the book but there were, inevitably, simplifications so there was enough about the book that was different to keep it feeling fresh.
Both of the main detectives, John Cardinal and Lise Delorme, are well-drawn. They come across as believably human and they are quite different from one another: age, gender and ethnic background. I liked how their relationship developed from a starting point of (well-deserved) mutual suspicion to something that might become a partnership, albeit a partnership between two naturally solitary people.
There was a focus on mental health in the book that felt a little off-kilter. The killers are depicted as psychotic. Cardinal's wife is bipolar. Cardinal himself verges on paranoid (although people really are out to get him) and Delorme has an exceptionally low now for association which, if it's not pathological, certainly puts her in a mental minority. None of this was badly done but it did feel a little as if poor mental health was the main cause of sorrow in this book. In my experience, it's more often the other way around.
The atmosphere of the novel was dolorous but not hopeless. The bleak winter weather and the mostly rural landscape are almost characters in their own right.
The plot was twisty and there are a couple of side plots to make things interesting. I'll be back for the rest of the series.
It turns out that the TV version was fairly faithful to the book but there were, inevitably, simplifications so there was enough about the book that was different to keep it feeling fresh.
Both of the main detectives, John Cardinal and Lise Delorme, are well-drawn. They come across as believably human and they are quite different from one another: age, gender and ethnic background. I liked how their relationship developed from a starting point of (well-deserved) mutual suspicion to something that might become a partnership, albeit a partnership between two naturally solitary people.
There was a focus on mental health in the book that felt a little off-kilter. The killers are depicted as psychotic. Cardinal's wife is bipolar. Cardinal himself verges on paranoid (although people really are out to get him) and Delorme has an exceptionally low now for association which, if it's not pathological, certainly puts her in a mental minority. None of this was badly done but it did feel a little as if poor mental health was the main cause of sorrow in this book. In my experience, it's more often the other way around.
The atmosphere of the novel was dolorous but not hopeless. The bleak winter weather and the mostly rural landscape are almost characters in their own right.
The plot was twisty and there are a couple of side plots to make things interesting. I'll be back for the rest of the series.
September 5, 2020
It had great locale placement (frozen Canada/ Algonquin Bay) and good character development. I enjoyed it to a 4 star level despite many tangent verbose and hard to intersect mobility features. The main characters on the law side and the explanations of Canadian process and logistics for this kind of serial killer being redundant and over-intersected to great copy lengths.
But after the 1/2 way point this jumped my chewy, gross, grit, torture, brutality bars. All of them. And because of that and the rather stomach gut ending, I would not continue with this series despite the decent prose flow and Cardinal as a worthy prime.
All of that hearing about his wife 3rd hand! There was a measure in that which just didn't fly true to me at all. Not just with Cardinal himself but the other close members.
Be heavily warned- Southern grit lit cruelty and gore has nothing on this version. Viscous acts heavily, intimately described for pages.
But after the 1/2 way point this jumped my chewy, gross, grit, torture, brutality bars. All of them. And because of that and the rather stomach gut ending, I would not continue with this series despite the decent prose flow and Cardinal as a worthy prime.
All of that hearing about his wife 3rd hand! There was a measure in that which just didn't fly true to me at all. Not just with Cardinal himself but the other close members.
Be heavily warned- Southern grit lit cruelty and gore has nothing on this version. Viscous acts heavily, intimately described for pages.
January 17, 2010
Mystery fans who haven't discovered Giles Blunt should rejoice. You have many hours of exceptionally well-written story ahead of you.
December 23, 2018
E’ stato il mio primo incontro con Giles Blunt, che prima non conoscevo e che un amico lettore, amante dei buoni thriller, ha vivamente consigliato.
E per fortuna io ho seguito il suo consiglio.
All’inizio devo ammettere che “fa” molto il tipico thriller all’americana stile Connelly, ma poi acquista un’impronta tutta sua. E si rivela un thriller magistralmente costruito, con un ritmo incalzante e l’ambientazione in una cittadina canadese dove il freddo pare uscure dalle pagine. Mi ha proprio invitata a farsi leggere al caldo delle coperte, per scoprire, con curiosità sempre crescente, chi ha ucciso la piccola Katie Pine, e le altre giovani vittime; in realtà l’assassino (o meglio, gli assassini) è già svelato a metà circa del libro, il che non lo rende meno interessante, anzi, buona parte della narrazione a seguire ci aiuta a entrare nella sua testa malata, a capire cosa lo trascina, cosa lo spinge a compiere quello che compie. Magari non si arriva ad avere una risposta, ma intanto si riflette.
Che dire se non che consiglio il romanzo a tutti gli amanti del thriller puro, e che vorrei scoprire altro di Giles Blunt!
E per fortuna io ho seguito il suo consiglio.
All’inizio devo ammettere che “fa” molto il tipico thriller all’americana stile Connelly, ma poi acquista un’impronta tutta sua. E si rivela un thriller magistralmente costruito, con un ritmo incalzante e l’ambientazione in una cittadina canadese dove il freddo pare uscure dalle pagine. Mi ha proprio invitata a farsi leggere al caldo delle coperte, per scoprire, con curiosità sempre crescente, chi ha ucciso la piccola Katie Pine, e le altre giovani vittime; in realtà l’assassino (o meglio, gli assassini) è già svelato a metà circa del libro, il che non lo rende meno interessante, anzi, buona parte della narrazione a seguire ci aiuta a entrare nella sua testa malata, a capire cosa lo trascina, cosa lo spinge a compiere quello che compie. Magari non si arriva ad avere una risposta, ma intanto si riflette.
Che dire se non che consiglio il romanzo a tutti gli amanti del thriller puro, e che vorrei scoprire altro di Giles Blunt!
July 5, 2023
Watched the tv show a few years ago, and in prep for a somewhat abortive Canadian holiday decided to give the book a try. Takes a while to get going properly but i just read the last 60% in a day. Definitely a cut above other police procedurals i ve read, the characters and action feel more in focus and in depth, with more complexity and ambiguity. Will definitely keep reading the series.
January 20, 2024
"Kanadischer Winter" von Giles Blunt hat mich auf eine fesselnde Reise durch die eisigen Weiten Kanadas mitgenommen. Zu Beginn konnte ich mich nur schwer mit den Hauptfiguren anfreunden, aber im Laufe der Geschichte bin ich ihnen nähergekommen, auch durch einige persönliche Aspekte der Protagonist*innen.
Besonders beeindruckend fand ich die stetig steigende Spannung und Dynamik des Falles. Der Perspektivenwechsel, der auch die Sicht des Täters einschließt, verlieh der Geschichte eine zusätzliche, packende Dimension. Das frostige Wintersetting in Kanada hat mir gut gefallen, obwohl die Handlung genauso gut in einer US-Stadt hätte spielen können.
Die Nebenhandlung um den Detektiv Cardinal war für mich eine erfrischende Abwechslung und brachte eine interessante Note in die Geschichte. Es war spürbar, dass der Autor, als Drehbuchautor der Krimi-Serie "Law & Order", sein Handwerk versteht. Einige Szenen wirkten regelrecht cineastisch aufbereitet.
Ein kleiner Wermutstropfen war für mich die Diskrepanz zwischen dem Klappentext und dem tatsächlichen Inhalt, als der Fokus auf das indigene Opfer gelenkt wurde. Ich hatte gehofft, mehr über die Kultur der Chippewa zu erfahren, doch dies spielte im ersten Band der Reihe keine relevante Rolle.
Trotzdem halte ich "Kanadischer Winter" für einen soliden 4-Sterne-Thriller. Die Entscheidung, ob ich die gesamte Reihe mit ihren sechs Bänden weiterlesen werde, hängt wohl eher von meinem aktuellen SuB (Stapel ungelesener Bücher) ab und davon, welche Krimi-Reihe gerade meine Priorität hat. Insgesamt aber definitiv lesenswert.
Besonders beeindruckend fand ich die stetig steigende Spannung und Dynamik des Falles. Der Perspektivenwechsel, der auch die Sicht des Täters einschließt, verlieh der Geschichte eine zusätzliche, packende Dimension. Das frostige Wintersetting in Kanada hat mir gut gefallen, obwohl die Handlung genauso gut in einer US-Stadt hätte spielen können.
Die Nebenhandlung um den Detektiv Cardinal war für mich eine erfrischende Abwechslung und brachte eine interessante Note in die Geschichte. Es war spürbar, dass der Autor, als Drehbuchautor der Krimi-Serie "Law & Order", sein Handwerk versteht. Einige Szenen wirkten regelrecht cineastisch aufbereitet.
Ein kleiner Wermutstropfen war für mich die Diskrepanz zwischen dem Klappentext und dem tatsächlichen Inhalt, als der Fokus auf das indigene Opfer gelenkt wurde. Ich hatte gehofft, mehr über die Kultur der Chippewa zu erfahren, doch dies spielte im ersten Band der Reihe keine relevante Rolle.
Trotzdem halte ich "Kanadischer Winter" für einen soliden 4-Sterne-Thriller. Die Entscheidung, ob ich die gesamte Reihe mit ihren sechs Bänden weiterlesen werde, hängt wohl eher von meinem aktuellen SuB (Stapel ungelesener Bücher) ab und davon, welche Krimi-Reihe gerade meine Priorität hat. Insgesamt aber definitiv lesenswert.
June 9, 2013
Giles Blunt's "Forty Words for Sorrow" is a very good, almost outstanding police procedural. One of the blurbs on the cover screams "The most horrifying story since The Silence of the Lambs (LA Times)". Well, not really, but it is pretty close. I would agree with Jonathan Kellerman's assessment, also published on the cover, "One of the finest crime novels I've ever read", as long as the pool of the "finest crime novels" is large enough.
This is the first novel in Mr. Blunt's notable series featuring detectives John Cardinal and Lise Delorme investigating in the fictional small Canadian town of Algonquin Bay, which is modeled on the author's own town of youth, North Bay in Ontario. Cases of missing young people turn into serial murders, and John Cardinal is teamed with Lise Delorme against his wishes (yes, this is one of the few extreme cliches of the novel). Then there is The Other Investigation going on as well (trying to avoid spoilers I will stop at that).
I love several aspects of this book. First and foremost, it is written very well. The vivid descriptions of this small northern town on the lake, in the throes of severe winter, convey the feel of the place and the time. Second, the novel does not make much pretense to be more than what it is - an engrossing police procedural with psychologically accurate portraits of both the detectives and the killers. In fact, the mutual co-dependency between the pair of killers (how the ostensibly controlled person can really control the controlling one) is shown with great insight.
There are some really funny bits, like the characterization of basement burglaries (I can't quote it here without risking being offensive). The reader will not be likely to forget the characters of Karen Steen and Martha Wood. I love the sentence "Murder is a rare event in Canada." Sigh! And the author manages to use the word "mucilaginous" without sounding pretentious.
Good book and a really great read!
Four and a quarter stars.
This is the first novel in Mr. Blunt's notable series featuring detectives John Cardinal and Lise Delorme investigating in the fictional small Canadian town of Algonquin Bay, which is modeled on the author's own town of youth, North Bay in Ontario. Cases of missing young people turn into serial murders, and John Cardinal is teamed with Lise Delorme against his wishes (yes, this is one of the few extreme cliches of the novel). Then there is The Other Investigation going on as well (trying to avoid spoilers I will stop at that).
I love several aspects of this book. First and foremost, it is written very well. The vivid descriptions of this small northern town on the lake, in the throes of severe winter, convey the feel of the place and the time. Second, the novel does not make much pretense to be more than what it is - an engrossing police procedural with psychologically accurate portraits of both the detectives and the killers. In fact, the mutual co-dependency between the pair of killers (how the ostensibly controlled person can really control the controlling one) is shown with great insight.
There are some really funny bits, like the characterization of basement burglaries (I can't quote it here without risking being offensive). The reader will not be likely to forget the characters of Karen Steen and Martha Wood. I love the sentence "Murder is a rare event in Canada." Sigh! And the author manages to use the word "mucilaginous" without sounding pretentious.
Good book and a really great read!
Four and a quarter stars.
May 29, 2011
I would give Forty Words for Sorrow a resounding five stars, if by the highest rating I also meant, most satisfied. It is a brilliant book: the tale drags the reader along, mercilessly, into the warm hearts of the flawed good guys, the chilling heartlessness of the efficient bad guys, their brutality lashing out, page after page. A brilliant book? A deeply disturbing book ... I need a cleanser after this.
Giles Blunt's hero is Detective Inspector John Cardinal, 10 years already on the Algonquin Bay police force somewhere near Huntsville, Ontario. He's a dedicated cop, always struggling to be the best he can, weighed down by an action in his past, and by a wife whose mental illness does collateral damage on his soul, while he tries every day to be the best father to his Yale attending daughter. He's a cop with issues and he's a very, very good cop.
Stir into this mix: Toronto drug mafia infesting his home town of Algonquin Bay; a serial killer on the loose who targets teenagers; a frozen body found in a mine-shaft, a 13 year old whose case Cardinal worked on; and a new female partner who has one foot in Special Investigations and the target is John Cardinal ... the inside snitch who is feeding the local mafia guy "helpful" information for a fee. It's a police procedural with forensics and lead tracking; and a thriller, with a relentlessly suspenseful playing out as another teenage victim runs out of time and Cardinal and his team inch closer ... and closer.
Recommended with the caveat: it's a hard tale to put aside; it's a hard tale not to. And another half dozen books beckon when you're done.
Giles Blunt's hero is Detective Inspector John Cardinal, 10 years already on the Algonquin Bay police force somewhere near Huntsville, Ontario. He's a dedicated cop, always struggling to be the best he can, weighed down by an action in his past, and by a wife whose mental illness does collateral damage on his soul, while he tries every day to be the best father to his Yale attending daughter. He's a cop with issues and he's a very, very good cop.
Stir into this mix: Toronto drug mafia infesting his home town of Algonquin Bay; a serial killer on the loose who targets teenagers; a frozen body found in a mine-shaft, a 13 year old whose case Cardinal worked on; and a new female partner who has one foot in Special Investigations and the target is John Cardinal ... the inside snitch who is feeding the local mafia guy "helpful" information for a fee. It's a police procedural with forensics and lead tracking; and a thriller, with a relentlessly suspenseful playing out as another teenage victim runs out of time and Cardinal and his team inch closer ... and closer.
Recommended with the caveat: it's a hard tale to put aside; it's a hard tale not to. And another half dozen books beckon when you're done.
November 2, 2018
The start of another mystery series set in Canada, but a pretty good one. This isn't for those who dislike a lot of 'gore,' or prefer not to read about people being killed, however...
The writing is excellent; the characters are not stereotypes; the setting is cold, bleak, hard, unforgiving. I liked the MC, John Cardinal, who's not perfect, and the partner he's working with, Lise Delorme, who's also less than -
The men act like men and notice a woman's body before all else, but it's not overdone. In fact, it's quite realistic. In all other ways they're professionals - and their own selves. Some are profane and hard-working, others are ordinary joes who go home to wife and kids at the end of a long day. Detective Cardinal has a wife suffering from severe depression and an upbeat daughter working on an art degree at Yale. (And yes, the way he's paying for that is explained in the course of the story.) His partner, Delorme, may or may not be investigating Cardinal for offenses explained as the story unfolds.
The story itself: someone is killing young people - of both sexes - in a gruesome manner. There are clues and evidence this way and that, the frustrations of law enforcement in full view, forensics and the full emotional array of what police officers, detectives, and others must go through to 'get their man.'
However, and as I said, it's often a grisly read, but those sections or chapters are, thankfully, rather brief. A good read. I will probably read more in the series.
Four stars
The writing is excellent; the characters are not stereotypes; the setting is cold, bleak, hard, unforgiving. I liked the MC, John Cardinal, who's not perfect, and the partner he's working with, Lise Delorme, who's also less than -
The men act like men and notice a woman's body before all else, but it's not overdone. In fact, it's quite realistic. In all other ways they're professionals - and their own selves. Some are profane and hard-working, others are ordinary joes who go home to wife and kids at the end of a long day. Detective Cardinal has a wife suffering from severe depression and an upbeat daughter working on an art degree at Yale. (And yes, the way he's paying for that is explained in the course of the story.) His partner, Delorme, may or may not be investigating Cardinal for offenses explained as the story unfolds.
The story itself: someone is killing young people - of both sexes - in a gruesome manner. There are clues and evidence this way and that, the frustrations of law enforcement in full view, forensics and the full emotional array of what police officers, detectives, and others must go through to 'get their man.'
However, and as I said, it's often a grisly read, but those sections or chapters are, thankfully, rather brief. A good read. I will probably read more in the series.
Four stars
April 25, 2021
This was my first Blunt novel and anxiously await reading the other books in this series.
To me, it was a great page-turner and I was gripped by everything that was written and not bored at all. Even the slight diversion of the money theft by Cardinal and his wife's condition was not enough of a distraction, but added to the troubled life and mind-set of his actions when tracking down the killers.
The two characters of Delorme & Cardinal were well-thought out and blended well together and with the other police detectives involved in this case.
And, what twisted minds Eric & Edie had. But, in a sense maybe not so much since they methodically selected their victims?
I only saw a handful of the episodes on TV since the program was not on my cable package.
Want to read a great crime book by a well-established writer? Read this one!
To me, it was a great page-turner and I was gripped by everything that was written and not bored at all. Even the slight diversion of the money theft by Cardinal and his wife's condition was not enough of a distraction, but added to the troubled life and mind-set of his actions when tracking down the killers.
The two characters of Delorme & Cardinal were well-thought out and blended well together and with the other police detectives involved in this case.
And, what twisted minds Eric & Edie had. But, in a sense maybe not so much since they methodically selected their victims?
I only saw a handful of the episodes on TV since the program was not on my cable package.
Want to read a great crime book by a well-established writer? Read this one!
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