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DEAD WATER CREEK
by Alex Brett
University of Toronto Press, May 2003
325 pages
$7.99
ISBN: 1550024523


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

First, the disclosure. I won this book from the author, Alex Brett, in a raffle on the DorothyL discussion list, and boy, am I glad I did. Otherwise, I probably would never have come across this excellent first mystery.

Alex Brett is trying to do something brave and big in this book and for the most part she pulls it off admirably. The message at the heart of the novel concerns the way in which environmental degradation and over-fishing are threatening the survival of our marine habitats and with them our sources of food from the sea. She never, ever overplays the message at the expense of the suspenseful narrative, either, and that is a major accomplishment for a first novelist.

Morgan O'Brien, an investigator for the Canadian National Council for Research and Technology, is an interesting woman. She's spunky, far more intelligent than your average amateur sleuth, and suffers from a streak of reckless rebellion that nearly gets her killed.

Morgan, one of the council's senior investigators, manages to maneuver an assignment in Vancouver, far from her detested boss, Bob, and the council's offices in Ottawa. It's a case involving possible research fraud on a grant designated for the study of Pacific salmon population dynamics. A junior researcher has accused his prominent boss of using restricted research money for his own pet project. The file has been buried for months, only to surface with a sticker on it from the director limiting the investigation to finances only. Naturally, this piques Morgan's interest all the more.

Morgan goes AWOL from her job and assumes an undercover identity in her friend Elaine's lab, which by neat coincidence is part of the department under investigation. The research involves the high-stakes salmon fishing business and includes an intriguing hypothesis about salmon migration that could be worth millions to a commercial fishing enterprise.

When Morgan finds one of the lab assistants dead in a barrel containing dissecting samples, the tension mounts still further and as her investigation progresses she uncovers not only the embezzler but also the reason the salmon on the Frazier River have gone missing.

There is much to admire in this book. Among the highlights is the most elegant biological explanation of sensory perception I've ever read. The biological sciences environment is rendered so brilliantly that only someone who's put in long hours in the labs she's describing could have written the book.

Brett peoples the mystery with minority, transgender and lesbian characters whom she handles with humanity and sensitivity avoiding the usual stereotypes, a quality rare in detective (or any other) fiction.

Ask your independent bookseller to order this book for you. If you've got even the slightest interest in biological science or want to know where the grilled salmon on your plate comes from you'll find this story intriguing. And even if you don't, you'll still love this fresh and engrossing new Canadian voice.

Reviewed by Carroll Johnson, May 2004

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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