RARA-AVIS: Giles Blunt, "By The Time You Read This"

From: Stephen Burridge ( stephen.burridge@gmail.com)
Date: 17 Nov 2006


I think Blunt's 4th novel about Algonquin Bay, Ontario detective John Cardinal is one of the darkest things I've read in quite a while. I'm about 200 pages into it and I'm finding it difficult to read, though it's gripping enough and I do want to know how it turns out. Depression, suicide, and pedophilia are involved. I think Blunt is a highly skilled writer. This is the most intense of the 4 Cardinal books, with a plot that so far seems more focused than the others.

I don't know the crime fiction world as well as many if not most list members and I'm not sure if Blunt qualifies as a hard-boiled or noir writer. These books are basically police procedurals, I believe, that get startlingly grim in their depiction of the crimes involved. But maybe that's not so unusual these days.

Stephen Burridge

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