by Giles Blunt
First published 2005
Detective John Cardinal knows that blackflies descend on Algonquin Bay every May without warning. This year brings other unwelcome arrivals. A Chippewa shaman called Red Bear gathers three young drug users around him, chanting words that collide and stream from his throat like urgent prophecies. At the World Tavern, OPP officer Jerry Commanda meets a red-haired woman who cannot remember her name or address. Hospital X-rays reveal why: a bullet sits lodged in her brain. Cardinal and his partner Lise Delorme inherit the case and discover connections to motorcycle gangs and strange symbols. Bodies begin piling up around Algonquin Bay as the investigation deepens. Cardinal must navigate between the mysterious shaman's growing influence over his followers and the violent world that put a bullet in an innocent woman's head. The case forces him to confront how memory shapes identity and what happens when both are stripped away.
Genres: mystery, crime, thriller, detective
Vibes: atmospheric, dark, suspenseful
Tropes: investigation, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Algonquin Bay, World Tavern
Period: May
400 pages · Paperback · HARPERCOLLINS @ PUBLISHERS
Content warnings: drug-use, violence