Widows and Orphans by Kate Hilton and Elizabeth Renzetti

The former Globe & Mail journalist and her writing partner, a psychotherapist, teamed up last year for their first novel. Set at a failing newspaper in a small Ontario town, Bury the Lead was quite fun. The town’s theatre festival is in shambles after their problematic leading man collapses on stage. Amateur sleuth Cat Conway pursues her own investigation after becoming a suspect, and the theatre setting and its many players are portrayed vividly in a dialogue-heavy novel.

I’m less impressed with the conjuring up of wellness and vaccination conspiracy theorists in their second joint outing, Widows and Orphans. Cat is covering a weekend event put on by an unlikely duo who have dubbed their company Welcome, Goddess. Their followers are credulous and uncritical, and that’s a problem. It’s so easy to satirize such rituals, from food fads to pseudo-meditation, that the authors write off most of the characters as either charlatans or fools.

When one of the two Goddesses dies in a fall, there are plenty of suspects, and this time Cat’s own mother is among them. An accomplished guide for successful midlife women, she has decided to hitch her wagon to the wellness movement. Hyper-critical Marian Conway is, in her own way, as exploitative and self-centred as the wellness cultists. One of the novel’s themes is the fragile bonds of adults with their flawed yet beloved parents.

There were several things I liked about the story. Cat’s budding romance with her longtime friend, who has inconveniently become her boss, is depicted thoughtfully. His family and cultural context get some welcome attention. Like the first book, this is a well-paced mystery that develops multiple plot strands, including an upheaval in Cat’s family. The dialogue is snappy, and Cat is beguilingly imperfect and honest.

But also like the first book, this is not a very gripping mystery. Cat’s investigations are desultory and most of the revelations–especially near the end of the novel–are offered up to her, requiring little in the way of sleuthing. Due to her recent investigative reporting, she’s beset by the town’s local anti-COVID vaxxers, who have termed themselves a small convoy. The treatment of these aggressively unpleasant male characters is one-dimensional, missing an opportunity to explore the motivations of a rising political threat.

Cat is a compelling and unusual protagonist: a midlife woman having to figure out a second act, after the loss of her big-city journalism job. There’s an event in this book that echoes the dramatic downfall of her on-air reporting in Toronto. Once again, she has to fight for her professional life.

In the first novel, her growing circle of female friends was a highlight of her new home. Here her friendships have receded, and the bonds between women at the conference are shallow and fraught. Wellness culture needs rigorous feminist critique, so it’s unfortunate that the authors are more disdainful than curious about the setting they’ve crafted. Readers are invited to sneer at the supporting characters, which means we don’t care about the victim’s fate and it doesn’t really matter whodunit.

Decades ago, a grad school friend who reviewed spas for travel publications co-created a wellness site that became a Big Thing. There’s a cookbook. There were lots of TV appearances to talk about women’s health. The website had a corporate buyout a while ago, but the tenor of the writing hasn’t much changed. Perusing it occasionally, I’m struck by how therapy lite is incorporated into the content.

Women are looking for helpful health guidance and psychological support. In the American landscape in particular, dominated by expensive insurance and for-profit care, online writing is more accessible than time with a doctor. For all of the frippery (the astrology, the questionable mysticism, the appropriation of bits and pieces of countless spiritual traditions), there’s a clear demand for this kind of work.

Renzetti and Hilton’s novel makes me want to know who is profiting from this new-age-y, quasi-feminist movement, and how it intersects with broader developments in women’s health. There’s an excerpt in a CBC piece that provides a sense of the book. And if they write a follow-up, I’ll keep reading! Despite my criticisms, this is a sturdy series so far, and there’s room to grow into the setting and the characters.