Black Rock
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4.5 • 2 Ratings
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- $8.99
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
Set amid the tumult of 1970 Montreal, this is “an extremely good crime novel [with] a seriously compelling mystery” (Booklist).
The police in Montreal have their hands full as FLQ, a militant separatist group, continue a campaign of violence. Bombs explode at the stock exchange and at McGill University. Riots break out at a parade. Diplomat James Cross and government minister Pierre Laporte are kidnapped—and the Canadian army moves onto the streets. But while all this is going on, the “Vampire Killer” has murdered three women and a fourth is missing.
A young beat cop finds himself almost alone hunting the serial killer, as the rest of the force focuses on the crisis. Constable Eddie Dougherty, the son of a French mother and an Irish-Canadian father, is determined to take matters into his own hands before another victim dies . . .
From the acclaimed author of the Toronto series, Black Rock is “a superb police procedural . . . set against the backdrop of a seminal period in Canadian history” (Winnipeg Free Press).
“Excellent . . . Well done history and a really good plot line.” —The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A killer is stalking Montreal. Four women are dead, and yet the police seem no closer to catching the depraved murderer. The fourth victim is young Brenda Webber, whose sister Constable Eddie Dougherty knew. Unfortunately for the Webbers, it is 1970 and the escalating Front de lib ration du Qu bec terrorist campaign, a campaign of bombs, kidnapping, bank robberies and murder that will ultimately see tanks and soldiers on the streets of the City of Saints, consumes all available police resources. Determined to get justice for Brenda, Eddie carries out a quiet one-man investigation, steadfastly searching for a hidden killer. A comparatively young officer, Eddie's ambition is greater than his ability in this novel. Neither entirely Anglo nor French, he occupies an uncomfortable position in the divided Montreal of 1970, but his outside status grants him a perspective others may lack. Born in Montreal himself, McFetridge (Swap) uses the events of 1970 to good effect, providing his historical procedural with an atmosphere of oppressive fear and paranoia. A short afterword explains how his fiction ties into the actual events of the time. Quietly competent, this work succeeds both as a mystery and snapshot of Canada in a particular fraught era.
