RCMP Sergeant Booker Kennison has a checkered past: foster child considered a difficult placement; flirtation with drugs and crime; given a choice: the army or a road that leads straight to prison, he chooses the former and ends up in Bosnia ducking and hunting snipers and investigating murders too horrific to be countenanced; return to Canada and the RCMP; key role in investigating corruption in the RCMP which makes him a marked man and a powder keg for some whose careers he could ruin with his testimony. Assigned to Yellowknife, he is sent further north to investigate two deaths by fire at an archaeological dig where a mixed team of Americans, Brits, Canadians including Inuit, are working to unravel the mysteries of the final days of members of the ill-fated Franklin expedition. But it is not just death by fire--murder is evident; and further murder is plotted by a killer who has tracked Kennison even to the barren wastes where light is visible only a few hours a day and winter is closing fast and forcing the closing of the site. Only eight people at the site, but the intrigue deepens and the body count mounts. A journal found on the body of one of the Franklin crew is a holy grail of archaeology that can make careers, but it becomes a lightning rod for murder as motivations collide on what the journal could mean and how could it be used to foster or thwart modern political objectives.

Murphy has it all: corruption in the RCMP (based on the pension fund manipulation which was real); shady and corrupt American interests bent on disproving a Canadian claim to the Northwest Passage as a Canadian waterway; academic plaudits worth killing for; political intrigue; questionable European interests; the farce of the current Canadian government’s arctic sovereignty policy that is all talk and precious little action; domestic terrorists; a contract on the life of Kennison such that he has no idea whom he can trust; the effect of the modern world (going back to Franklin) on the way of life of the Innuit who carve out existence in a totaling unforgiving land.

Murphy is, by and large, successful in bringing all of this together in a very restricted space (the archaeological dig) with a limited number of well-drawn characters. Sections of the journal are interspersed throughout the story, making the link back to that original profanation of the Innuit’s space, and detailing the slow and very painful disintegration of the Franklin expedition. From the journal and action in the present day at the site, Murphy describes well how the smallest slip, a moment of inattention, a detail overlooked can mean death in north.

The plot moves well as Kennison fumbles about in the dark, literally and figuratively, in first discovering the murder, searching for motive, dealing with conflicting interests within the group, and always with an eye to outside dangers that can strike in even such a remote area. Not to mention the dangers of the climate: the cold can maim or kill as surely as a bullet. I thought the end-game went on a little too long and not all the actions fit: would you really stop to read the final entries in a journal, no matter how interesting, when you have killed two assassins and know a third is looking to complete the job? But, the story moves well. Kennison is a character with some depth to him. The conflicting political and other forces are quite believable. A quick read that does hold your attention.

A sad note: Murphy died shortly after completing the novel. One could easily imagine a series that might have developed with Booker Kennison.

Combine the mystery of what happened to Sir John Franklin's expedition to find the North West Passage with a Mountie who has been banished to Yellowknife so he won't testify about the shenanigans with the RCMP pension plan and then throw in some Inuit guerrilla fighters and you have a terrific tale. The fact that it occurs in the remote Arctic when the sun has almost disappeared from the sky for six months adds spice to the tale.

A distinguished Arctic archaeologist finds a journal that one of Franklin's seamen kept throughout the voyage. He reports to his funders in Washington who dispatch a new employee, Ruby Cruz, to the Arctic to escort the scientist home with his valuable find. Except, before she gets there the scientist perishes in a fire together with a young female student. Sargeant Booker Kennison is sent from Yellowknife to investigate because the Mountie in the Nunavut town nearest to the site is expecting trouble from some Inuit nationalists. In the faint light Kenniston is able to see that the scientist has a bullet hole in his temple but as he continues to investigate he is shot at himself. An Inuit teenager kills the sniper who has no identifying papers but who posed as an American fisherman. Kenniston stays behind to investigate the circumstances while the three bodies are flown to Yellowknife. He and Cruz eventually cooperate and it's a good thing they do because the Inuit nationalists converge on the site, hoping to obtain the seaman's journal as well.

The harsh but beautiful setting is captured well by Murphy. The low light, the sudden storms, the overwhelming clarity of the stars and the magnificence of the Northern Lights are made real by his descriptions. I thought the inclusion of the Inuit desperadoes was pushing it a bit but it did make for a very tense scene in the penultimate chapter.

Sadly, Dennis Richard Murphy died soon after he wrote this book. I could see a series with Booker Kenniston and perhaps Ruby Cruz cleaning up the northern reaches of Canada. I would have read them. ( )

Sgt. Kennison, a Mountie, has been sent to Yellowknife, NWT, because of the threat he poses his superiors. When the body of Dr. Kneisser, a scientist researching the Franklin Expedition, and another person turn up dead in Victory Point, King William Island, Nunavut, he is sent to investigate. Meanwhile, Ruby Cruz has been sent by Kneisser's sponsors to fetch him back to the Washington, DC area along with a journal he's discovered. For such a cold and dark destination, there's a surprising amount of action and adventure packed into these pages. I'd love to revisit the characters, but the author's death after completing this book makes that an impossibility. I'll just have to imagine what might have happened. ( )

Victory Point, King William Island, Nunavut. When people speak metaphorically about the "ends of the earth", this is one of the ends. It's remote, barren, cold, dark, and, above all, dangerous for the eight-member archaeological team excavating remains of the Franklin Expedition. Not all of the team members will live to announce their findings to the world. When Mountie Booker Kennison arrives to investigate a fire that resulted in the deaths of two team members, it soon becomes clear that the fire is only the beginning of the dangers threatening the people at the site.

The author was a writer for film and television, and it shows in this novel. There is more action and description than reflection, the chapters are fairly short like scenes in a film, and the imagery is vivid. The author tried to pack too much into the story, though. It's easier for film viewers to suspend their disbelief during an uninterrupted 90 minutes of fast-paced action than for readers to do the same over several days of reading in between other activities. I hope I'm not giving away too much by saying that the body count eventually became ridiculous.

The characters were, for the most part, very well drawn. Had the author lived, I think he could have adjusted his story development from screen writing to novel writing. This book was good enough to make me want to read another one by this author, and it's a shame there won't be any more. ( )

An entertaining book with a tense, if slightly odd, climax. It's a shame that Murphy died shortly after completing this, his first book, (and before its publication) because I would have loved to read more. Full review: http://www.canadianauthors.net/m/murphy_dennis_richard/darkness_at_the_stroke_of... ( )