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NIGHT'S CHILD by Maureen Jennings McClelland and Stewart, May 2005 312 pages $24.99CDN ISBN: 0771043740 Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

Thanks to his religious affiliation (he is a Roman Catholic in a city where Presbyterians occupy the positions of power) and to a tight-fisted city council, poor Will Murdoch is still just an acting detective and still hoping to be confirmed as a full-fledged detective one day. His professional disappointment does not, however, prevent him from pursuing the cases that come his way with his usual combination of dogged persistence and moral integrity.

In this fifth in the series, wintertime Toronto in 1894 is as wet and chilly as ever and Murdoch has to plod its damp streets in search of the source of some pornographic stereopticon photos. He is less affected by the nature of the pictures than by the fact that one of the models, Agnes Fisher, is a 13-year-old girl.

Miss Amy Slade, a gifted public school teacher and New Woman (she even wears Rational Dress), has found the photos in Agnes's desk and she has turned to Will Murdoch to investigate the matter. At the same time, Murdoch's boss has asked him to look into certain anonymous letters that have arrived at the station accusing one of the sergeants of unspecified but quite possibly illegal or immoral behaviour.

As we follow Murdoch in his investigations, we learn a good deal about the seamier side of Toronto the Good -- about poverty and desperation,the vulnerability of servants, about class division, and about movements for social change. On the lighter side, we are spectators at a typewriting competition, a reminder of the social and economic changes, especially for women, that new technology is about to create.

This is a solid series, and Murdoch is a very solid protagonist. We like him enough to care about the progress of his love life and to wish him well. No prig, and certainly no puritan, he has seen enough of crime and corruption to be unsurprised when they occur, but he has not become so hardened that he cannot be appalled at the forms they take.

The newly introduced characters that seem likely to return are a welcome addition. I do wish, however, that Jennings' editor would be a bit more attentive to her grammar, which is at time distractingly unsteady.

Reviewed by Yvonne Klein, May 2005

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)

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