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Helen Keremos Mysteries #6
White Noise
The last book in the series, Sonny, a former client from Hong Kong, arrives in Vancouver to ask Helen for help. He's in trouble and doesn't know who's after him. A kidnapping attempt ensues, forcing Helen into the midst of a complicated set of crimes
- GenresMystery
248 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 1997
About the author
Eve Zaremba
18 books7 followersEve Zaremba (1930–2025) was a Canadian mystery writer. She was active in the Women’s liberation movement in the 1970s and 1980s. She published several novels focusing on Helen Keremos, a private detective described as the first lesbian character in literary history to be the main character in an ongoing series of mystery novels.
Eve Zaremba was born in Poland and emigrated to Canada in 1952 after a stint in the UK. She graduated from University of Toronto in 1963.
Active in the Women's Liberation Movement in the seventies and eighties, Zaremba was a founding member of Broadside, A Feminist Review published in Toronto from 1978 to 1988. She has written articles and reviews in a number of other publications.
Eve Zaremba was born in Poland and emigrated to Canada in 1952 after a stint in the UK. She graduated from University of Toronto in 1963.
Active in the Women's Liberation Movement in the seventies and eighties, Zaremba was a founding member of Broadside, A Feminist Review published in Toronto from 1978 to 1988. She has written articles and reviews in a number of other publications.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
September 10, 2025
An end of an era, the last of the Helen Keremos books. Helen Keremos is one badass lady private eye, and I am glad she got the happy ever after she deserved. I feel this book was mostly written to give some sort of conclusion to Helen and her life, the mystery wasn't as juicy as the ones previous, and the threads were easy enough to follow compared to some of the other books. Cheers to a wonderful journey!
June 5, 2019
Like The Butterfly Effect this, the last book in the Helen Keremos series, is written in the third person—there are even places where it looks like it may have begun as first person but was changed at the last minute. Also like The Butterfly Effect, this one is far inferior to the first four. So much so, in fact, that I can’t help but suspect think that Eve Zaremba—or her publisher—paid a ghost writer to do the bulk of the writing of these two books.
I know that’s a pretty heavy thing to say, but not only has the point of view changed, but the style of writing has changed as well as most of Helen’s personality. For instance, the Helen of Beyond Hope would never say anything as juvenile as “Go home. Do not pass Go” or “Am I right or am I right?” And she would never say anything as fuddy-duddyish as “You’ve got your nerve lecturing me, Sonny Burke.” The book has a different feel altogether; an uncomfortable feel. Certainly she is less the superwoman here as elsewhere, and ordinariness just doesn’t suit her. Too, 20 years seem to have passed somewhere as Helen—about 36 in the first book—is suddenly 59. Did Zaremba forget her character’s age, or did the ghost writer just not bother to read the other novels? Heck, she even drinks Scotch now—in the first book she did not care for the stuff.
As to the plot, well, Helen gets to Vancouver at last—it only took her 6 books to get there, but she is finally home—with Julie Piper, the girlfriend she picked up in Japan. But she’s not there long before Sonny Burke—who, like Julie, is a character we first met in—you guessed it, The Butterfly Effect flies into Canada and hires Helen to help him escape from bandits unknown. Or at least he says they’re unknown. So Helen has to try to find out the truth about the men who are tailing him—and get the real truth out of Sonny as well.
If I’m going to be completely honest, the novel is set up pretty well, a couple of small incidents foreshadow bigger things to come; one group of bandits turns into another, then another—and some are not really bandits at all. All of these things help to move the book along. On the other hand, the descriptions of the islands off Vancouver are far too lengthy—even superfluous. The author or her ghost even invents a fictitious island for no apparent reason, as it is not really important to the plot. The existence of the real islands off Vancouver, however, with their small lesbian communities, will be of interest to most readers.
Oh yes, Helen finally manages to get to the bottom of things and the series comes to kind of a placid satisfying end. But without the snappy, dour, and no-nonsense Helen I came to love and respect in Work for a Million, White Noise, is disappointing indeed.
I read what seems to be the first Second Story printing of this novel.
Note: This review is included in my book The Art of the Lesbian Mystery Novel, along with information on over 1250 other lesbian mysteries by over 400 authors.
I know that’s a pretty heavy thing to say, but not only has the point of view changed, but the style of writing has changed as well as most of Helen’s personality. For instance, the Helen of Beyond Hope would never say anything as juvenile as “Go home. Do not pass Go” or “Am I right or am I right?” And she would never say anything as fuddy-duddyish as “You’ve got your nerve lecturing me, Sonny Burke.” The book has a different feel altogether; an uncomfortable feel. Certainly she is less the superwoman here as elsewhere, and ordinariness just doesn’t suit her. Too, 20 years seem to have passed somewhere as Helen—about 36 in the first book—is suddenly 59. Did Zaremba forget her character’s age, or did the ghost writer just not bother to read the other novels? Heck, she even drinks Scotch now—in the first book she did not care for the stuff.
As to the plot, well, Helen gets to Vancouver at last—it only took her 6 books to get there, but she is finally home—with Julie Piper, the girlfriend she picked up in Japan. But she’s not there long before Sonny Burke—who, like Julie, is a character we first met in—you guessed it, The Butterfly Effect flies into Canada and hires Helen to help him escape from bandits unknown. Or at least he says they’re unknown. So Helen has to try to find out the truth about the men who are tailing him—and get the real truth out of Sonny as well.
If I’m going to be completely honest, the novel is set up pretty well, a couple of small incidents foreshadow bigger things to come; one group of bandits turns into another, then another—and some are not really bandits at all. All of these things help to move the book along. On the other hand, the descriptions of the islands off Vancouver are far too lengthy—even superfluous. The author or her ghost even invents a fictitious island for no apparent reason, as it is not really important to the plot. The existence of the real islands off Vancouver, however, with their small lesbian communities, will be of interest to most readers.
Oh yes, Helen finally manages to get to the bottom of things and the series comes to kind of a placid satisfying end. But without the snappy, dour, and no-nonsense Helen I came to love and respect in Work for a Million, White Noise, is disappointing indeed.
I read what seems to be the first Second Story printing of this novel.
Note: This review is included in my book The Art of the Lesbian Mystery Novel, along with information on over 1250 other lesbian mysteries by over 400 authors.
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June 23, 2007One of the best suspenses u might read
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews