PREPARE

1.      Take a look at a map of Canada. Look at the wide expanse from the northern tip of Vancouver Island in the west to the Atlantic Ocean in the east.

2.      Familiarize yourself with the various police services in Canada. Learn a few abbreviations, RCMP, OPS, CSIS.

3.      Review the ingredients for a modern detective/mystery novel: a puzzle to be solved; an intelligent protagonist matched against an antagonist of comparable skill and tenacity; a fast paced race against time; a cast of interesting and believable characters interacting in interesting human ways with loyalty, jealousy, and love; the use of forensic science to help solve the puzzles; some religious mumbo-jumbo to frighten the reader with suggestions of a deeply puzzling universe possibly inhabited by non-natural entities.

4.      Seek out a comfortable chair of sofa. If you have a seat belt available, attached it securely.

READ

Ready? Strapped in? Go. Open to page one and begin reading. If you are lucky have someone bring you food and drink as required for you will want to stay until the end, will not want to interrupt your reading for such trivialities. Depending on your reading speed you should emerge in three or four hours filled with the excitement and awe of having spent those hours with a fully human, professional Detective Inspector, Hazel Micallef, who has been juggling many responsibilities of family and career while involved in the biggest and weirdest murder case in recent times.

Place names are important; hence the need for a Canadian map. Vast distances slip by quickly in this fast-paced, chronologically presented novel. Chapter titles are dates. Characters are complete. Action is described in great detail with skill.

A puzzling crime comes to the attention of Detective Inspector Micallef and the bodies begin to pile up as a connection is established among a number of suspicious deaths across the country. It is the biggest case ever for this small town police force struggling to maintain its autonomy against the provincial centralization of police services. Forensic evidence is puzzling for each body seems to have been splashed with the blood of many others. Who is responsible for this spree of murders?

I will say no more about plot. You have to read it. If you are a fan of detective stories you will want to read The Calling. If you are a fan of good fiction you will want to read The Calling.

ENJOY

Finished? Pour yourself a Canadian whiskey. Call a friend who has read the book. Spend two hours talking about the twists and turns of the novel. Look at the back cover of the book where you will see:  "Inger Wolfe is the pseudonym for a prominent North American literary novelist." Try to guess who Inger Wolfe is.

Later when you retire for the night prepare for some graphic nightmares.

© 2008 Bob Lane

Bob Lane is a retired professor of English and Philosophy who is currently a Honourary Research Associate in Philosophy at Malaspina University-College in British Columbia, Canada.