The Delicate Storm: A John Cardinal Mystery
- ISBN-10
- 0307368513
- ISBN-13
- 9780307368515
- Series
- The Delicate Storm
- Category
- Fiction
- Pages
- 304
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2010-08-27
- Publisher
- Seal Books
- Author
- Giles Blunt
Description
…there is nothing more still than a dead body, and no mistaking it for anything else. This one was naked, covered with a glaze of ice. Even the long black hair that fell in tendrils across her face was encased in ice. It was as if she were under a spell–the victim of a jealous wizard, a wicked witch. [The Delicate Storm, page 164] Algonquin Bay is wrapped in a thick blanket of fog; an eerie prophecy of weather on its way, or perhaps something more ominous. When a local man discovers a dismembered arm in his front yard, it seems that the long fingers of fog that strangle the city are also hiding a grisly secret. While at first the discovery is thought to be the work of ravenous bears, woken early from their long winter hibernation, the coroner later confirms that the victim was actually sawn into pieces rather torn. The case becomes even murkier when a local trapper confesses to cutting up the body and scattering the remains but claims to be innocent of committing the murder. Detectives John Cardinal and Lise Delorme have their work cut out for them. After identifying the victim as Howard Matlock, New York city resident, a new player enters the ring: the RCMP. In any case involving an American, the RCMP shares jurisdiction with the Algonquin Bay Police Department and that means Corporal Malcolm Musgrave. A blustering wall of self-importance and attitude, Musgrave has Cardinal bristling, and he reminds Delorme of a betrayal she’d rather forget. To add insult to injury, Delorme is pulled off the case and Cardinal ends up in a partnership not only with Musgrave, but with the unbearably obsequious Calvin Squier, an agent of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS). When Cardinal makes the surprising discovery that Howard Matlock is alive and well, he begins to suspect that not everyone involved in the case is working towards the same goal. The body parts add up to one Miles Shakeley, a CIA operative in Montreal in 1970, and Cardinal becomes suspicious that CSIS is somehow involved. Meanwhile, the case of a missing woman in Algonquin Bay is occupying Delorme. When the body of Dr. Winter Cates is uncovered in a glaze of ice, Delorme is convinced that a jealous boyfriend is to blame. But when blood evidence bonds Cardinal and Delorme’s cases, they are back together and travelling to Montreal to track down tenuous leads. And it is there that they discover that their cases reach far beyond the town limits of Algonquin Bay. Untangling the secrets of a government in crisis, cover-ups, and the meddling of American intelligence agencies, they are eventually led back to where they started–and to a suspect who is untouchable.
Get the book
Other editions
Similar books
-
Forty Words for Sorrow
By Giles BluntAnother tiny splash on the linoleum floor. Husband murdered, and now her daughter too. The Inuit, it is said, have forty different words for snow. Never mind about snow, Cardinal mused, what people really need is forty words for sorrow.
-
Blackfly Season
By Giles BluntLuckily, a truck driver who had picked her up outside of Barrie realized the state she was in and had had the kindness and good sense to call the local police, who had managed to track Cardinal down in Toronto.
-
Until the Night
By Giles BluntIn Until the Night, Giles Blunt outdoes himself, creating a masterpiece of crime fiction that will not only haunt his fans and readers, but delight and amaze them too.
-
Crime Machine
By Giles BluntThe victims, visitors from Russia, are in Algonquin Bay attending the annual fur auction. This is by no means a routine murder investigation as Cardinal soon discovers, but a horrific piece of a very twisted puzzle.
-
The Delicate Storm
By Natalia CostaThe Delicate Storm is a combination of three poetry works that cover different journeys: 4098, Iorana and Kung Fu Fragments. 4098 is the number of miles traveled in the Western American road trip that took place in April 2015 and covered ...
-
No Such Creature
By Giles BluntTooling across the American southwest in their giant Winnebago, Max and his nephew, Owen, seem harmless enough, the actorly old fellow spouting Shakespeare like a faucet while his young charge trots him through select tourist destinations ...
-
John Cardinal Mysteries 3-Book Bundle: Forty Words for Sorrow, The Delicate Storm, Blackfly Season
By Giles BluntThe first three novels in the award-winning, bestselling John Cardinal mystery series revisit this northern Ontario setting with wholly unique, thrilling and suspenseful tales, and an unforgettable protagonist who has been called “the ...
-
Crossbones
By Kimberly ValeNever trust a pirate.
-
Forty Words for Sorrow
By Giles BluntEvoking the Canadian winter and the hearts of the killers and cops in icily realistic prose, Giles Blunt has produced a masterful crime novel that rivals the best of Martin Cruz Smith and introduces readers to a detective hero whose own ...
-
Storm Prey
By John SandfordLucas looked at him, and said, “Yeah. Somebody should.” VIRGIL WOULD START looking for people with French accents who worked in the hospital, Lucas decided, since he was there most of the day anyway. “I'll get Shrake and Jenkins to haul ...