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Charlie Salter #1
The Night the Gods Smiled
Meet Inspector Charlie Salter, a detective with the Toronto Police Department.
His reputation among members of the force at present, especially with his superiors, is not the best. He's been shunted to a desk job. But when Montreal asks for help in the investigation of the murder of a Toronto college professor in one of their hotels, the Superintendent asks Charlie to meet D.S. Henri O'Brien when he arrives in Toronto and offer any assistance needed. Was everyone else too busy? Whatever, Charlie is back doing what he does best.
At first, it appears to be a simple case of Arthur Summers meeting the wrong woman during a convention in Montreal. It soon becomes much more complicated.
Librarian's note: all the characters, settings, description updates, etc. have been done for the Charlie Salter 11 volume + one novella series: 1. The Night the Gods Smiled, 1983; 2. Smoke Detector, 1984; 3. Death in the Old Country, 1985; 4. A Single Death, 1986; 5. A Body Surrounded by Water, 1987; 6. A Question of Murder, 1988; 7. A Sensitive Case, 1990; 8. Final Cut, 1991; 9. A Fine Italian Hand, 1992; 10. Death by Degrees, 1993; 11. The Last Hand, 2001; and 11.A. My Brother's Keeper, a novella with Howard Engel featuring both Salter and Benny Cooperman, 2001.
His reputation among members of the force at present, especially with his superiors, is not the best. He's been shunted to a desk job. But when Montreal asks for help in the investigation of the murder of a Toronto college professor in one of their hotels, the Superintendent asks Charlie to meet D.S. Henri O'Brien when he arrives in Toronto and offer any assistance needed. Was everyone else too busy? Whatever, Charlie is back doing what he does best.
At first, it appears to be a simple case of Arthur Summers meeting the wrong woman during a convention in Montreal. It soon becomes much more complicated.
Librarian's note: all the characters, settings, description updates, etc. have been done for the Charlie Salter 11 volume + one novella series: 1. The Night the Gods Smiled, 1983; 2. Smoke Detector, 1984; 3. Death in the Old Country, 1985; 4. A Single Death, 1986; 5. A Body Surrounded by Water, 1987; 6. A Question of Murder, 1988; 7. A Sensitive Case, 1990; 8. Final Cut, 1991; 9. A Fine Italian Hand, 1992; 10. Death by Degrees, 1993; 11. The Last Hand, 2001; and 11.A. My Brother's Keeper, a novella with Howard Engel featuring both Salter and Benny Cooperman, 2001.
181 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1983
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93 people want to read
About the author
Eric Wright
89 books11 followersThere is more than one author with this name in the database. Not all books on this profile belong to the same author.
Eric Wright was born in London, England and immigrated to Canada in 1951. He is the award-winning author of seventeen crime novels, including his first novel, The Night the Gods Smiled, which won the Arthur Ellis Award for Best Crime Novel, the Crime Writer's Association's John Creasey Award, and the City of Toronto Book Award. His memoir, Always Give a Penny to a Blind Man, about growing up poor in working-class London, was published in 1999.
Eric Wright was born in London, England and immigrated to Canada in 1951. He is the award-winning author of seventeen crime novels, including his first novel, The Night the Gods Smiled, which won the Arthur Ellis Award for Best Crime Novel, the Crime Writer's Association's John Creasey Award, and the City of Toronto Book Award. His memoir, Always Give a Penny to a Blind Man, about growing up poor in working-class London, was published in 1999.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
December 2, 2025
5 Stars. I couldn't put it down. Fortunately for my other 'must-do-todays,' it was only 175 pages! Number two looms on the horizon. Eric Wright is a name one doesn't hear as much in the 2020s. An English-born Canadian author of the 1980s, 90s and 00s, he passed away in 2015 after publishing 20 or so detective procedurals - mostly about Toronto Detective Inspector Charlie Salter. The series has 11 entries and a novella between 1984 and 2001. Salter has backed the wrong internal candidate for Deputy Chief too enthusiastically and found himself pushing a desk. Miscellaneous inquiries, nothing more. Dealing with difficult policing matters on the streets was a thing of the past. Then a professor of English at Douglas College in Toronto is found murdered in a Montreal hotel room; he had been in Quebec for an academic conference. To pay back a favour to the Montreal police, Toronto P.D. offers up Charlie to handle any necessary digging in Toronto. There was a glass with lipstick on it in Arthur Summers' room. From a female professor? A prostitute? Why was he telling everyone about his luck that weekend? I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. (Se2023/De2025)
August 30, 2018
Book fundraisers always lead me to serendipitous discoveries! Eric Wright is a fortuitous find: a box set of his first four volumes, at .50c! Complete Canadian mysteries, new to me, are a gift! I wouldn’t have sought the unsmiling grey man on the front but his material is appealing and home-grown. It’s no joke: this lay on a stray Canadian table, as my spouse and I exited a tiring extravaganza. There is a light-hearted feeling, maybe from the protagonist’s family: his wife Annie of Prince Edward Island elite, two sons who defer to her, and a cantankerous Father who visits. However, this does not pass muster as the cozy genre: which makes a nice change! I prefer standard adult mysteries!
There’s a good deal of wry humour but sexuality is gritty. More than one of his novels has him seeking his wife in bed, with fairly direct language. When he interviews the professorial bunch who went to Montréal, they too are frank about sexual pursuits. In a succinct nutshell: this is grown-up fiction, written by a man. The career element is Charlie Salter’s Toronto police department; with the special twist that he dropped to the bottom of the totem pole and is in a slump. A case worth sinking teeth into comes his way, because the usual investigators are busy.
A Torontonian is murdered at a university seminar. The Montréal case-handler befriends Charlie, with whom he works on it in tandem. The unravelling of the mystery keeps readers engaged. It gallops in such a way that information is always arising but isn’t fantastical or contrived for convenience. You see how Charlie works carefully, shrewdly, to whittle past the surface of blaming the professor’s rival. I love witnessing where and how to go about investigating; in Canadian cities for a change!
There’s a good deal of wry humour but sexuality is gritty. More than one of his novels has him seeking his wife in bed, with fairly direct language. When he interviews the professorial bunch who went to Montréal, they too are frank about sexual pursuits. In a succinct nutshell: this is grown-up fiction, written by a man. The career element is Charlie Salter’s Toronto police department; with the special twist that he dropped to the bottom of the totem pole and is in a slump. A case worth sinking teeth into comes his way, because the usual investigators are busy.
A Torontonian is murdered at a university seminar. The Montréal case-handler befriends Charlie, with whom he works on it in tandem. The unravelling of the mystery keeps readers engaged. It gallops in such a way that information is always arising but isn’t fantastical or contrived for convenience. You see how Charlie works carefully, shrewdly, to whittle past the surface of blaming the professor’s rival. I love witnessing where and how to go about investigating; in Canadian cities for a change!
January 9, 2020
Charlie Salter, a disgruntled Toronto policeman who has been sidelined on unimportant jobs due to internal politics, is asked to liaise with the Montreal police on a suspicious death case. It took me awhile to warm up to Charlie mainly because of his private life where he several times acts petulantly toward his wife and sons, but as the story progressed, he began to change as he becomes involved with the case and makes some changes in his life.
May 1, 2016
I'd been looking for a new mystery series. I enjoy M.C. Beaton's Agatha Raisin and Joanne Fluke's Hannah Swensen, but am all caught up to date with them. Seeing as Wright's book had won awards and was written back in 1983, I knew there would be a number of titles to read if I liked this one. Set in Toronto, the city I grew up in and know well, I had high hopes. Unfortunately, it didn't live up to my expectations. Apart from the detective's wife, I didn't really like any of the characters, and while I get that police officers may not be given to polite language - especially perhaps in the male-dominated environment and period in which this took place - there were too many f-bombs and JCs for me. As far as the mystery itself goes, there were certainly a number of possible suspects and a variety of red herrings. The reader was right there with the protagonist in trying to sort them all out.
February 21, 2011
A well written, engaging police procedural (which won the Toronto Book Award in 1984) whose strongest feature is probably the characterization of its protagonist, a police inspector going through a mid-life crisis, and its description of 'Douglas College' (a thinly fictionalized version of Ryerson University) and the foibles of the academics who are tenured there.
Have I reached the last of the set-in-Toronto detective/mystery novels? After having read more than a dozen in the past month or so, I conclude that they are pleasant because they don't expect much of the reader but ultimately dull for the same reason. I like literature to demand something, and most genre novels don't seem to offer or ask for much. The one exception so far: Robert Rotenberg's Old City Hall, a complex and highly engaging work that transcends its nominal genre.
Have I reached the last of the set-in-Toronto detective/mystery novels? After having read more than a dozen in the past month or so, I conclude that they are pleasant because they don't expect much of the reader but ultimately dull for the same reason. I like literature to demand something, and most genre novels don't seem to offer or ask for much. The one exception so far: Robert Rotenberg's Old City Hall, a complex and highly engaging work that transcends its nominal genre.
July 23, 2015
Rife with sexism and casually bigoted language. But, not a bad mystery. A quick read and reasonably well-written. Plus, it's always interesting to read a book set in Toronto/Montreal.
May 1, 2019
Not a terribly gripping mystery here, nor is the prose all that gripping. The book gets increasingly vulgar by the end, as if this early '80s mystery realized it was the '80s and had to be saucy and racist or something. The book gets increasingly lackadaisical because our "hero" is a really dull, self-absorbed guy who doesn't care much about his wife and children or the things that interest him yet he wonders why this kind of person doesn't have a better career. We sort of get a hint toward the end he is going to be rewarded for his efforts in the future, and perhaps his relationship with his wife and children will get better, but there are also signs toward the end he's becoming more brutish than passive toward her, which isn't quite an improvement. The solution to the mystery is mostly guesswork and coincidence, not really impressive deduction and problem solving, thanks to a bizarre decision to play racquetball for no discernible reason. Not a terribly impressive debut, but apparently it was good enough back in the day to warrant more Charlie Salter "adventures."
July 30, 2025
Charlie Salter is a Toronto policeman, sidelined to a desk job because of internal politics. When a murder case in Montreal is passed on to him, he eagerly takes it on.
Charlie Salter’s detective methods are effective, but his personal attitude toward his wife and sons was disgusting. The sexual references and scenes and the foul language made this story disappointing for me. If he had been a more respectful man it would have made for a better story.
I used this book for the 2025 52bookclubchallenge, prompt “Title starts with letter “N”.”
I also used it for two prompts for the 2025 Indigo reading challenge, “First in a series” and “Award winner.”
Charlie Salter’s detective methods are effective, but his personal attitude toward his wife and sons was disgusting. The sexual references and scenes and the foul language made this story disappointing for me. If he had been a more respectful man it would have made for a better story.
I used this book for the 2025 52bookclubchallenge, prompt “Title starts with letter “N”.”
I also used it for two prompts for the 2025 Indigo reading challenge, “First in a series” and “Award winner.”
April 23, 2022
I read this book in one sitting. I'm from Hamilton and I know Toronto well, so it was nice to read a story set in a familiar setting. Charlie Salter is a believable character who's no saint by any means, but undeniably human with all the foibles to go with that. Enjoyable mystery and engaging plot!
December 26, 2015
Dated. Liked the character development, but the story was weak. I forget why I sought this book, but perhaps to read something about Toronto. Not at all in the same league as Rosemary Aubert's Ellis Portal mysteries also set in Toronto
August 3, 2022
I liked Inspector Charlie Salter, and he really carries the book.
November 8, 2022
On ne peut pas dire que j'ai été soufflée par cette histoire. Peut-être est-ce la traduction, parce que ce roman a gagné des prix. Un polar trop stéréotypé à mon goût
September 9, 2025
Kinda mid.
September 26, 2025
Charlie Salter #1
The Night the Gods Smiled
Eric Wright
A Toronto Detective investigates a murder committed in Montreal at the behest of a Montreal Detective on the grounds of a thinly disguised UofT. Charlie has a family with two boys who each have newspaper routes. So set at a time when it was still considered safe for young boys to be wandering the streets alone before dawn.
Another writer I’m exploring relates his own experience with the residents of an Eaton Estate who still owed him for 6 months of papers.
Liked this book from the first pages I read.
Many large hotels’ bread and butter is the conferences they host and the large convention spaces they provide and the banquets they cater. What becomes apparent in this reading is that for the attendees the actual sessions are a secondary concern. It’s the couple who teach at the same college who meet for a yearly tryst....
And the strangest things can crack a case.
It’s always a pleasure to read a good book set in a locale one knows well.
The Night the Gods Smiled
Eric Wright
A Toronto Detective investigates a murder committed in Montreal at the behest of a Montreal Detective on the grounds of a thinly disguised UofT. Charlie has a family with two boys who each have newspaper routes. So set at a time when it was still considered safe for young boys to be wandering the streets alone before dawn.
Another writer I’m exploring relates his own experience with the residents of an Eaton Estate who still owed him for 6 months of papers.
Liked this book from the first pages I read.
Many large hotels’ bread and butter is the conferences they host and the large convention spaces they provide and the banquets they cater. What becomes apparent in this reading is that for the attendees the actual sessions are a secondary concern. It’s the couple who teach at the same college who meet for a yearly tryst....
And the strangest things can crack a case.
It’s always a pleasure to read a good book set in a locale one knows well.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews