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STAIN OF THE BERRY is the fourth in the Russell Quant PI series – and the strongest to date This enjoyable series, which boasts an amiable and chatty (sometimes too chatty!) hero, really fires on all cylinders when it focuses on Quant's home town of Saskatoon in Canada. In previous books it's sometimes felt like Russell's adventures have been hung on Bidulka's summer holiday snaps from exotic locations! This time, apart from a weird James Bond excursion to the Arctic Circle, he stays close to home and the book is the better for it. It has a strong sense of place – of the town, the plains and of Canada. This time Russell is hired to find out whether a young woman committed suicide or whether she was scared to death. The more he investigates, the more people he finds intimidated by the mysterious Boogeyman. In STAIN OF THE BERRY our hero is juggling several balls. Aside from trying to solve the mystery of Tanya Culinare's death, Russell is still looking for Sereena, his enigmatic neighbour and friend, who appears to have disappeared off the face of the earth. Then, out of leftfield, there's a blast from the past which rocks Russell's comfortable world. Bidulka is a relaxed and fluent storyteller who creates some memorable characters (the farmer's wife, very much a bit part, still sticks in my mind), but occasionally needs to rein in some of his kookiness. Amidst an eclectic cast of a retired miner, an Amazonian stalker, a gay choir, eccentric families and some very strange farming people, a farting shrink felt like one weirdo too many! The book moves along briskly and Bidulka keeps a firm hand on his disparate plot strands. There's one moment which, given the danger Russell is in during the book, had me squawking in disbelief and muttering about authors telegraphing their intentions too blatantly! Where STAIN OF THE BERRY really scores, though, is in an ending which has a double punch to the stomach and means Russell's life will never be the same again. Bidulka has moved his character along out of the comfort zone and is forcing him to develop. This promises much for the fifth book, which will have a lot to live up to after STAIN OF THE BERRY.
Reviewed by Sharon Wheeler, November 2006
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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