Author: Heidi Tiedemann Darroch
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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…
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Jean Hanff Korelitz’s The Plot and The Sequel
Four years ago, Jean Hanff Korelitz published The Plot, to near-universal acclaim. Now she’s followed up with The Sequel. Both are crime fiction in a sense, as murders take place and there are ample thrills. In these funny, knowing books, genre conventions and the distinctions between “literary” and “popular” fiction receive close scrutiny. Yet there…
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Louise Penny’s A Trick of the Light: The Transformative Power of Sobriety
Louise Penny’s Three Pines/Gamache series features a cast of idiosyncratic local characters, with perhaps the most memorable being the redoubtable Ruth Zardo, Governor General’s Award-winning poet and an elderly, unrepentant drunk. Ruth covets other people’s alcohol; she emanates fumes of whisky. Put a glass down on the table, and Ruth will drink the dregs. I’ve…
