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John Farrow is the pseudonym of Trevor Ferguson, a writer who lives in Montreal. He left school early, his career since being a testimony to the theory that life is the best teacher. One of his earliest jobs was working in a Mafia run bar so he would have had a first hand glimpse into organised crime. No doubt nights spent driving a taxi in Montreal would have furthered his education in the seamy side of the life of that city, a far cry from his later occupation of teaching creative writing at University. During his time as a cab driver, Ferguson produced his first novel, High Water Chants , followed by Onyx John then The Kinkajou. As John Farrow, his first novel was City of Ice. This book concerned crime in Montreal and featured as hero the same protagonist as in Ice Lake: Sergeant Detective Šmile Cinq-Mars. A newspaper article written by Trevor Ferguson makes it abundantly clear he has closely researched... and deplores... the biker gang controlled crime scene in Montreal. Ice Lake bears chilling (sorry) testimony to his research. The narrative begins with Cinq-Mars and his partner, Detective Bill Mathers, waiting in an ice fishing hut on Lake of Two Mountains outside Montreal. Šmile has been contacted by a mysterious woman and instructed to meet her there as she has some important information for him. The meeting does not take place because, while the duo waits, a woman with a seven year-old daughter enters a nearby fishing hut then emerges screaming and frantic: there is the corpse of a man in the ice in her hut. Cinq-Mars realises the murder is outside his jurisdiction since he is with the Montreal Urban City Police Department and the crime must be investigated by the SuretÈ, but he fishes on the lake so takes a proprietary interest in it. He manages to insinuate himself into the investigation by acquainting himself with the SuretÈ investigating officer, Charles Painchaud (a surname translating deliciously as 'warm bread'.) It soon becomes apparent that there is a conspiracy afoot involving two pharmaceutical companies. The corpse, Andrew Stettler, was chief of security for one and had worked as a lab rat for the other. Native American Lucy Gabriel is another employee as is her friend Camille Choquette, who found the body and, with Lucy, is part of the plan that summoned Cinq-Mars to the lake. The author uses a device of switching around in time to heighten the tension. After seemingly establishing the characters he travels back a day to reveal the murder itself together with the identity of the murderer. This particular revelation made me gasp. It was an excellent strategy yet in no way lessened the tension and mystery surrounding the crime together with others both revealed and subsequent to that execution. The reader is left in doubt as to just who, apart from Cinq-Mars and his cohorts, is to be trusted. The narrative takes place against the background of crises in the protagonists' personal lives. The novel deals with sensitive issues such as AIDS and the testing of new drugs on human guinea pigs as well as the crime hierarchy in Montreal. Farrow has created as nasty a bunch of villains as I have ever encountered. The book is wonderfully structured and truly enthralling. The language is so evocative that the cold of Adelaide's winter was greatly intensified by Farrow's descriptions of the Montreal climate. I've no doubt that anyone discovering Farrow will anxiously await more of his work. Note: The review is based on the out of print Australian edition.  . It can still be downloaded for both Microsoft and Adobe readers.for $19.95
Reviewed by Denise Wels, July 2002
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