Helpful Score: 1
First Line: He was precisely on time.
Inger Ash Wolfe is the nom de plume of a "North American writer", and there has been much speculation as to the writer's true identity. I have my own suspicions, but at the end of the day, I don't really care whom the person is. All that's important is that this writer knows how to spin a wonderful tale.
61-year-old Detective Inspector Hazel Micallef has lived her entire life in the small town of Port Dundas, Ontario, Canada. Hobbling toward retirement with a bad back and a dependence on painkillers, she's still reeling from a divorce after nearly forty years of marriage. The only thing she has to sustain her is her critical octogenarian mother (the former mayor of Port Dundas) and her own acerbic tongue. When a terminally ill woman is found murdered in her own home and other similar murders follow, Hazel and her understaffed department find themselves on the trail of a serial killer.
Hazel takes this series of murders on her own patch very seriously:
"It was strange to have spent all of one's life in or close to a single place. But every time Detective Inspector Micallef drove this strip, her heart sang. This was where she belonged; there was no other place for her.... This was her world. Every doorway framed a story for her-- some good, some not so good-- and the faces that peered out of those doors, or walked the sidewalks, were her intimates."
It was serendipity for me to read two examples of what author Mike Befeler terms Geezer Lit back to back, but I found Hazel to be a breath of fresh air. She's a woman in a position of authority. Some of her body parts don't work the way they should. Some mornings she'd just rather stay in bed. Her mother could wear out a daughter half Hazel's age, but Hazel keeps on trucking. The head of the Port Dundas police department retired seven years before, and Hazel was named "temporary" chief. However, these are the days of governmental penny pinching, and since Port Dundas is such a little backwater, the temporary part of her job title makes Hazel laugh almost as much as the thoughts of getting a cell phone.
Delia Chandler's death raises too many questions for Hazel-- one of the benefits of living in a small town being that one knows the behavior and habits of everyone else. During the preliminary investigation Hazel shows one of the reasons why the people in Port Dundas like her so much: she cares every bit as much about them.
"I don't want her taken away from here," said Hazel sharply. "She was a citizen of this town for every minute of her eighty-odd years, and she'll be treated that way. Not like any old victim to be stuck in a fridge."
When Hazel isn't dealing with other detectives or fighting to keep the media from knowing more than they should, she gets to go home to deal with her mother, Emily:
"What do you want with the bloody Internet, Mother?" she'd asked her. "It's nothing but filth and collectibles. And chat rooms-- what do you need with a chat room?"
"You sound like my mother," Emily Micallef said.
Wolfe's characterizations are so real that I was caring deeply about these people in no time flat... to the point where I worried about Hazel's overstepping her authority when she found a way to get the additional help they needed. Would her eagerness to do anything it takes to identify the killer and bring him to justice cause her to make mistakes that would make the entire investigation blow up in her face and let a murderer go free?
Brilliant characterizations, a finely tuned sense of place, the feel of life in a small town, and a plot that can move so quickly one's in danger of getting whiplash... all these things combined to make The Calling an incredible read. I savored this book, I fell in love with Hazel, and I've got my sights set on the next book in the series, The Taken.
Inger Ash Wolfe is the nom de plume of a "North American writer", and there has been much speculation as to the writer's true identity. I have my own suspicions, but at the end of the day, I don't really care whom the person is. All that's important is that this writer knows how to spin a wonderful tale.
61-year-old Detective Inspector Hazel Micallef has lived her entire life in the small town of Port Dundas, Ontario, Canada. Hobbling toward retirement with a bad back and a dependence on painkillers, she's still reeling from a divorce after nearly forty years of marriage. The only thing she has to sustain her is her critical octogenarian mother (the former mayor of Port Dundas) and her own acerbic tongue. When a terminally ill woman is found murdered in her own home and other similar murders follow, Hazel and her understaffed department find themselves on the trail of a serial killer.
Hazel takes this series of murders on her own patch very seriously:
"It was strange to have spent all of one's life in or close to a single place. But every time Detective Inspector Micallef drove this strip, her heart sang. This was where she belonged; there was no other place for her.... This was her world. Every doorway framed a story for her-- some good, some not so good-- and the faces that peered out of those doors, or walked the sidewalks, were her intimates."
It was serendipity for me to read two examples of what author Mike Befeler terms Geezer Lit back to back, but I found Hazel to be a breath of fresh air. She's a woman in a position of authority. Some of her body parts don't work the way they should. Some mornings she'd just rather stay in bed. Her mother could wear out a daughter half Hazel's age, but Hazel keeps on trucking. The head of the Port Dundas police department retired seven years before, and Hazel was named "temporary" chief. However, these are the days of governmental penny pinching, and since Port Dundas is such a little backwater, the temporary part of her job title makes Hazel laugh almost as much as the thoughts of getting a cell phone.
Delia Chandler's death raises too many questions for Hazel-- one of the benefits of living in a small town being that one knows the behavior and habits of everyone else. During the preliminary investigation Hazel shows one of the reasons why the people in Port Dundas like her so much: she cares every bit as much about them.
"I don't want her taken away from here," said Hazel sharply. "She was a citizen of this town for every minute of her eighty-odd years, and she'll be treated that way. Not like any old victim to be stuck in a fridge."
When Hazel isn't dealing with other detectives or fighting to keep the media from knowing more than they should, she gets to go home to deal with her mother, Emily:
"What do you want with the bloody Internet, Mother?" she'd asked her. "It's nothing but filth and collectibles. And chat rooms-- what do you need with a chat room?"
"You sound like my mother," Emily Micallef said.
Wolfe's characterizations are so real that I was caring deeply about these people in no time flat... to the point where I worried about Hazel's overstepping her authority when she found a way to get the additional help they needed. Would her eagerness to do anything it takes to identify the killer and bring him to justice cause her to make mistakes that would make the entire investigation blow up in her face and let a murderer go free?
Brilliant characterizations, a finely tuned sense of place, the feel of life in a small town, and a plot that can move so quickly one's in danger of getting whiplash... all these things combined to make The Calling an incredible read. I savored this book, I fell in love with Hazel, and I've got my sights set on the next book in the series, The Taken.
Helpful Score: 1
Excellent read! The characters are well-drawn, the development of the crimes and the investigation is paced well, and the conclusion satisfying. I hope Wolfe writes more in this series.
