Northern Blue

I think that this was Richardson's first book and in some ways it's very obvious that it was.

The novel is basically two parts. The first half of the novel takes place at Ontario Canada's police college. It's told from the point of view of Miranda, a character who is very determined to make it to the top echelon of the Ontario police forces (though she starts in a small town). She meets not one, but two fellow Police Officers who are lesbians and she has interesting relationships with both of them.

The second part of the novel is about three years later. Miranda is back in Hooperstown, engaged to the Mayor's son and up for a promotion from Police Officer to Police Sergeant. Then one of the women from the police officers college, Miki, show more arrives in town and Miranda's perfectly ordered life gets thoroughly shaken up.

Unfortunately some of the prose was a little ungainly. And although it's a good skeleton of a plot, it also seemed like it could have been fleshed out so much more.

Still, those things were balanced out by the fact that the characters were pretty darn good, and it was a short and fun read. Solid three stars. show less