Imagining Crime

by Meg D. Edwards

Anew crop of crime novels is sprouting up in Newfoundland and Labrador this spring and there is something for everybody, whether you like a cosy mystery, a gripping thriller or gritty realism.

In Four for Fogo Island, Kevin Major offers the perfect alchemy of sweet and salty, serving up the crime story like a digestive cookie with tea, while Natalie Carter-Giles’s Hunting Helena is a dark, suspenseful thriller and Shelly Kawaja’s Raw Light of Morning is a gritty, heartfelt examination of recovery from childhood trauma.

Major’s Four for Fogo Island (the fourth book in his Sebastian Synard mystery series) brings back the sardonic private investigator, Sebastian, in a lighthearted and tightly plotted mystery. A recent divorcee with a teenage son, Sebastian is a “man’s man” who speaks in clipped sentences and loves a good meal. Major says that writing a series is a lot of fun because it gives him the opportunity to “have his (Sebastian’s) personal relationships evolve over the books,” and in this novel Sebastian is offered plenty of opportunity for growth.

Sebastian is looking forward to an intimate four-day trip to Fogo Island with his new girlfriend, Mae. Unfortunately for him, upon their arrival on the island, the couple come across a murdered quilter and from there on in Sebastian is surrounded by eccentric women, young and old (including his ex-wife).

Sebastian’s disappointing getaway continues to devolve when he finds that his investigation methods don’t work well with “fabric artists.” In the end he is forced to admit that Mae’s womanly style of emotional bonding and endless chatting is an effective investigative method, and he is left on the sidelines making acerbic comments about people’s outfits and motives.

Major’s sense of humour bubbles like a brook throughout the novel. Timbits play a role, and there is a tense car chase that ends up in a ferry queue on a small island with nowhere to hide. It’s not hard to picture this series as a television show and Major says his publishers are pushing for it. “I think the central character Sebastion would be a great role for someone,” says Major, “and the series could really come alive.”

Reading this book reignited my desire to visit Newfoundland and Labrador, especially Fogo Island, and that’s no accident. “I’ve always been a great proponent of the splendor of Newfoundland and Labrador,” says Major, who purposefully gave Sebastian the side job as tour guide so his character could travel all over the province.

For those readers who want less giggling and more shivers down the back, Natalie Carter-Giles’s first novel Hunting Helena falls into the thriller genre. The novel begins in the heart of a crime, with the narration of Helena’s horrific abduction and torture, and the exhilaration of her escape. This is a fast-paced thriller with suspense, plot twists and an unexpected resolution. However, fair warning for those who might have anxiety regarding abduction or sexual assault, the author does not spare the details.

But Helena is no victim. She is a survivor determined to conquer her fears and she develops into a brave detective in her own right. We soon discover that although Helena was held captive by a sadist for three months, she has been living free for the last eight years. In fact, she has had a child created during the abduction, and focused her life on keeping that child happy and safe. But those years have been tainted by fear because the “monster” that held her against her will was never caught.

She is “living in limbo,” says Carter-Giles. “She wants to move on, she wants to protect her child,” but she can’t feel safe. When another woman is abducted Helena feels she must face her tormentor and end the fear, so she returns to her dreaded hometown, where she is haunted by cryptic notes at every step. Helena does not know who to trust and has everything to lose.

Carter-Giles, a fulltime florist with a “happy life” and a huge garden, may seem like an unlikely author of such a dark plot, but she says she likes thinking about how people’s minds work. An avid reader, Carter-Giles says she started with Nancy Drew and just kept going. She likes the psychological aspect of crime novels, the suspense and the plot twists. “I read thrillers all the time,” says Carter-Giles.

In Shelly Kawaja’s The Raw Light of Morning, we are not cajoled along with delicious sounding meals and views of icebergs, nor are we plotting revenge. In this first novel we join a young teen named Lauren as she struggles to rise above the difficult circumstances of living in poverty and whose involvement in a traumatic crime forces her to act, violently and intentionally, in order to save her family.

“Was a crime committed? I don’t think there was,” says Kawaja, who believes that the young woman’s actions were justified and the violence and poverty that Lauren faced in her life was the actual crime.

Kawaja’s description of Lauren’s impoverished life feels authentic, and it is not surprising to hear that Kawaja grew up in subsidized housing with a strong single mom. The writing in The Raw Light of Morning draws you in with its palpable immediacy. It feels as if your breath is entwined with Lauren’s, and that it is your hand that is wiping the jam off the counter, or the blood from the floor.

In this realistic novel, the suspense is built around Lauren’s struggle to heal from the trauma of her life. As the reader, we want her to resist being dragged down into cycles of poverty and crime. “When you grow up in poverty you are exposed to crime, and there’s even pressure, at times, to be part of it,” says Kawaja.

Lauren is a survivor, but she struggles to hold her own against abusive, manipulative men and generational maternal neglect. At one of her darker moments, Lauren receives a gift from her taciturn grandmother that illuminates the bravery of Lauren’s mother and helps Lauren acknowledge her own strength and resilience.

In all three of these crime novels, the reader relies on the central character to lead them through the chaos and brambles of the crime to a comforting resolution. With laughter, gasps or sighs, we examine human nature and wonder about the age-old question of nature versus nurture. Can circumstances make a criminal out of anyone? What causes us to break the social contract?

We are drawn to crime novels for the challenge of the puzzle, and the thrill of suspense. But every crime novel carries at the heart of it our fascination with human behavior, circumstances, motivation and consequences. ■

MEG EDWARDS is a writer living in Baie Verte, N.B. Her first play, Wrack and Ruin, was a runner up in the Notable Acts Playwriting Festival in 2020, receiving a staged reading at the festival. Her second play, Road Kill, had a public reading as part of Live Bait Theatre’s New Works Festival in 2021. Meg is working on her first novel, a cosy mystery with an edge, set in New Brunswick.