Forty Words for Sorrow

Rating: 3.75* of five

The Book Report: The first John Cardinal mystery, we're introduced to Detective Cardinal as he is reassigned to Homicide after being yanked into burglaries and other such unglamourous pursuits for daring to investigate the strange disappearances of several very young people in fictional Algonquin Bay, Ontario. The disappearees all have in common the fact they're run away before, not an unusual thing there in Algonquin Bay, which is a central exchange point for rail, bus, and highway travel for the whole country. Cardinal smells something wrong, though, and spends the town's resources too freely for his boss's comfort...until suddenly one of those disappearees turns up "all corpisfied and gross" (to quote a character show more on the late, lamented TV show Firefly). Cardinal is brought back to Homicide, with a new partner called Lise. She just happens to be on her first murder investigation, rewarded for her huge success in nailing a corrupt politician as the result of a special forensic accounting investigation.

And spying on Cardinal for Internal Affairs. There's a pickle to be in: Spying on your popular partner to see if he really committed a crime some years back and, if so, to rat him out to persons possibly untrustworthy. Go Lise! Way to start a new life!

Meanwhile, the author lets us in on the doings of the murderous in real time; feeds us clues to Cardinal's sad and stressful past and present; prefigures several inevitable moments in the pursuit of a sociopath; and blows up the entire power structure of the town. All comes out, surprisingly, better than the worst and not even all that bad.

My Review: **WARNING: GRAPHIC AND HORRIFYING SADISTIC VIOLENCE** (The book, not the review.)

This really shouldn't be marketed as a mystery. We know whodunit and whydunit. It's a chase thriller, and a good one. The violence warned of above is upsetting to me due to its victims being kids. In the end, Blunt's coolly presented, razor-edged prose and his vile, horrible imagination kept me awake and flopping from side to side in agonized suspense until I reached the end of the book. It was harrowing and horrible! I can't wait to read the next one! show less

I saw the first series of Cardinal, the TV adaptation of Forty Words For Sorrow, a few years ago and enjoyed the way it created an atmosphere of distrust and threat that was partly embodied by the fierce cold weather in which most of the action took place.

It turns out that the TV version was fairly faithful to the book but there were, inevitably, simplifications so there was enough about the book that was different to keep it feeling fresh.

Both of the main detectives, John Cardinal and Lise Delorme, are well-drawn. They come across as believably human and they are quite different from one another: age, gender and ethnic background. I liked how their relationship developed from a starting point of (well-deserved) mutual suspicion to show more something that might become a partnership, albeit a partnership between two naturally solitary people.

There was a focus on mental health in the book that felt a little off-kilter. The killers are depicted as psychotic. Cardinal's wife is bipolar. Cardinal himself verges on paranoid (although people really are out to get him) and Delorme has an exceptionally low now for association which, if it's not pathological, certainly puts her in a mental minority. None of this was badly done but it did feel a little as if poor mental health was the main cause of sorrow in this book. In my experience, it's more often the other way around.

The atmosphere of the novel was dolorous but not hopeless. The bleak winter weather and the mostly rural landscape are almost characters in their own right.

The plot was twisty and there are a couple of side plots to make things interesting. I'll be back for the rest of the series. show less

The title comes from a comparison to the Eskimo language. If there are forty words for snow, surely somewhere out there there are forty words that mean sorrow. John Cardinal is a flawed small town Canadian cop fixated on solving the mystery of the disappearance of a teenager girl. Maybe it was the thought of his own daughter that originally drove him, but Cardinal's obsession to solve the case depleted department resources and ultimately got him transferred out of homicide and into the burglary and petty crimes division. Meanwhile, another teenager goes missing. Then another. Suddenly, Cardinal's obsession, thirteen year old Katie Pine's remains are found. Maybe he was onto something after all? Is this the work of a serial killer? This show more time John is back on the case with a rookie for a partner (is it Lise or Lisa?) who might be investigating him.
This all would be a typical story of a dedicated office with an I-told-you-so attitude but Cardinal is a cop with a complicated life and a dirty secret his partner is determined to uncover. Can he solve the crime(s) before his personal life crashes down around him? His daughter is attending Yale on illegal funds, his wife's mental instability has landed her in an expensive in-patient hospital, and yet another individual has been found murdered. John asks again, is there a serial killer operating out of the tiny town of Algonquin Bay? Can Cardinal close the case before his colleagues close in on him?
Not a spoiler alert: I appreciate that Blunt leaves the ending open. Cardinal's crimes are not wrapped up in an all-is-forgiven-because-you-are-a-hero bow. There is room for Cardinal to make a comeback and face his demons. show less

Summary: When a missing teenager’s body is found in a mineshaft, John Cardinal is re-assigned to a case he’d been pulled off of and is joined by Lise DeLorme, who is also investigating him for corruption. Meanwhile, facts point to a serial killer when another body turns up and another missing youth is traced to their community.

John Cardinal had been investigating the disappearance of a girl, Katie Pine, that he’d linked to another missing youth. When the search threatened to absorb most of the Algonquin Bay police department resources, he was taken off the case. No other leads developed until now. Then a body was found, frozen in ice in an abandoned mine shaft. and identified as Katie Pine. He is put back on the case. We learn the show more depths of how much Cardinal cares about his work, and about the victims of crime in this interior monologue after he tells Katie’s widowed mother that her body has been found:

“Eskimos, it is said, have forty different words for snow. Never mind about snow, Cardinal mused, what people really need is forty words for sorrow. Grief. Heartbreak. Desolation. There were not enough for this childless mother in her empty house.”

BLUNT, P. 37

Cardinal has been assigned a partner from Special Investigations, Lise DeLorme. Sharp, observant, and strikingly attractive, it turns out she is investigating Cardinal on the quiet. After several frustrated attempts to bust a major credit card fraud operation, it becomes apparent someone is tipping off the suspect, a man by the name of Corbett. Cardinal suspects the investigation though DeLorme denies it. And there is something suspicious about this apparently diligent, caring cop. His wife is in an expensive psychiatric facility and he has a daughter in an art program at Yale. And all this on a cop’s salary. Yet as DeLorme comes to work with him, it seems out of character.

Their investigation leads them to see a link with one and possibly two other missing youth. They find another body. Then the girlfriend of another young man shows up. He had been headed to Algonquin Bay and had failed to stay in touch. It looks like they are hunting for a serial killer. Will they find the killer before there is another victim? They may have some time, but not a lot–it appears that the killer likes to play with the victims before administering slow, torturous deaths.

Unbeknownst to Cardinal and DeLorme, they are looking for two people, a twisted young man who already has a record as a child for killing animals and a needy, unattractive young woman who has been taken in thrall with both the man and his cult-like fascination with torture and murder. As DeLorme and Cardinal investigate, tension rachets up as we follow the killers in their plans to “party” with Keith London, the missing young man. The plot moves back and forth between the killers and the detectives, with the investigation DeLorme is pursuing on Cardinal in the background and Cardinal’s own troubled conscience raising further apprehensions.

Blunt plots this masterfully, developing the relationship between Cardinal and DeLorme from initial distrust to growing admiration that stays professional. Cardinal is faithful to his wife–even when she thinks herself worthless in her illness. We find ourselves rooting for them, not only to catch the killer(s), but for Cardinal to be cleared and for them to be able to trust each other. Blunt combines a fascinating police procedural with characters we care about and a psycho-thriller with truly evil killers and a young man with a girlfriend who loves him who we desperately want to survive.

[BTW, thanks BT for the gift of a great read!] show less

Giles Blunt's debut police procedural, is set in the chilling Canadian town of Algonquin Bay. I really expected more from the reviews and the endorsements from other authors. At times it was almost comical. There were massive leaps of illogic, near-supernatural forensics and sheer coincidence by which the police finally solve their case. Nevertheless, it's a very engaging read. I think this was mainly because Giles Blunt takes the unusual step of revealing the identity of his killers barely 100 pages in. This could have easily ruined the remainder of the book, but, it actually gives it legs. Exploring the psyches of killers, victims and cops in almost equal measure adds both a narrative and psychological richness you don't often find in show more this genre.

Would I read another of this authors works? The jury is still out on that one. Perhaps to just give the character a chance to mature and redeem himself. show less

I confess that the first attraction was that this book is set in Algonquin Bay, a thinly-disguised North Bay, Ontario—a place I've gone every summer since I was born. Well, I got a two-fer-one since, not only did I get to laugh with nostalgic glee when the main character stops at the Sundial Lodge in Orillia (I loved the French Toast there as a kid) but I also got a very enjoyable police procedural.

This story introduces us to what looks to be a series partnership. First, there is John Cardinal—experienced detective, slightly jaded, wife hospitalized for clinical depression, something funky in this past. We also meet Lise Delorme—younger, a bit more idealistic, transferred from Special Investigations (Internal Affairs for us show more Americans) to Homicide...oh, and investigating Cardinal at the same time as they investigate murders.

John has long suspected that a couple of missing kids were murder victims rather than runaways, but the only place he got was hot water with his superiors for wasting time. However, a mutilated body found in an old mine shaft causes everyone to realize they have a serial killer on their hands. In some ways, Blunt's story is fairly typical: existence of serial killer is noticed, new victim is taken, police race against the clock to get to killer before one more death. On the other hand, he has given us some very engaging characters who grow steadily throughout the story into very real people.

The author chooses to introduce us to the killers quite early in the book and we get many scenes from their perspectives. Unlike some procedurals where the tension is "who did it?", the tension here is the race between the two story lines.

I will note that, if you found something like Silence of the Lambs a bit too gruesome, you might not enjoy this. The killers are pretty twisted and it's all laid out for the reader. If you can take that kind of thing in stride, this is worth reading.

I'll definitely be back for the next one. show less

For me, the serial killer sub-genre has grown pretty tiresome. The later Thomas Harris books, along with the repellent Saw movies ,have sunk it for me. How many wily ,sadistic mass murderers are out there, anyway? Hundreds? Thousands? It's a wonder anyone is still breathing. Giles Blunt makes a valiant attempt, with this shopworn subject and mostly succeeds. He introduces some engaging characters, mainly the lead investigator, who is dealing with an ailing wife and a particularly troublesome skeleton, that has been rattling around in his closet. The wintry locale, also adds to it's charm, a small town in frozen Ontario. The killer is a textbook psychopath but Blunt adds just enough color to make him interesting. I recommend this book show more and will probably read the next entry. show less