The Delicate Storm (32 page)

BOOK: The Delicate Storm

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Acknowledgements

I owe a debt of thanks to the following people who read troublesome early drafts of
The Delicate Storm
and made crucial suggestions for cuts and improvements: Anne Collins, my editor at Random House Canada; my agent, Helen Heller; my editor at HarperCollins, Julia Wisdom; and my editor at Penguin Putnam, Marian Wood.

Thanks are also due to Staff Sergeant Rick Sapinski of the North Bay Police, who was generous with information on police methods; to Daniel Johnson, who did extensive research; and to the Writers Room in New York.

About the Author

G
ILES
B
LUNT
grew up in North Bay, Ontario, and after over twenty years in New York City has recently moved to Toronto. He has written scripts for
Law & Order, Street Legal
and
Night Heat
. Blunt is the author of
Cold Eye
and
Forty Words for Sorrow
, for which he won the British Crime Writers Association’s Macallan Silver Dagger.

ALSO BY GILES BLUNT

Forty Words for Sorrow

Winner of the British Crime Writers Association’s
Macallan Silver Dagger

When four teenagers go missing in the small northern town of Algonquin Bay, the extensive police investigation comes up empty. Everyone is ready to give up except Detective John Cardinal, whose persistence has only served to get him removed from Homicide. Haunted by a criminal secret in his own past, and hounded by a special investigation into corruption in the force, Cardinal is on the brink of losing his career—and his family.

When the mutilated body of thirteen-year-old Katie Pine is pulled from an abandoned mineshaft, only Cardinal is willing to consider the horrific truth: that this quiet town is home to the most vicious of serial killers….

Seal Books/ISBN: 0–7704–2873–8

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Blackfly Season

THE NEXT NOVEL FEATURING
DETECTIVE JOHN CARDINAL

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Blackfly Season

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Blackfly Season

It’s Algonquin Bay, the beginning of summer, and the blackflies are already beginning to drive people a little mad. John Cardinal and Lise Delorme have a real mystery on their hands—this time in the form of a young woman with masses of red hair who can’t remember her name or where she comes from. The reason: she’s been shot in the head with a small-calibre weapon. The woman is the same age as Cardinal’s estranged daughter, and he rapidly becomes obsessed with finding out who she is and who is trying to kill her.

Then a body turns up in the woods, one Wombat Guthrie, a biker/drug dealer whose head, hands and feet have been removed. At first the two cases could not seem farther apart. But subsequent clues—and another brutal murder—tie them together.

These acts of violence may be related to the fortunes of a small, even amateurish, drug gang that has recently hit the big time under the leadership of a man calling himself Red Bear. Red Bear, it appears, is an Iroquois shaman who enlists the help of the spirit world to protect him and his followers. The “spirits’ direct them to the drugs and money of rival gangs. The only problem with these “spirits” is that they demand sacrifice in return—and goats and chickens just won’t satisfy their thirst. Red Bear is on the hunt for humans.

With the help of a neuropsychologist, the mysterious young woman regains some of her memory. But try as he might, Cardinal just can’t tie all these threads together. He begins to suspect that the innocent young woman may not be so innocent after all, and that her recently returned “memories” may not be the whole truth.

Red Bear may not be what he seems, either. Is he really an Iroquois? Really a shaman? Or is he just another drug dealer with an appetite for savage murder?

Whatever the mystery of Red Bear, Cardinal and Delorme are desperate to catch the killer before his “spirits” claim another sacrifice.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Seal Books and colophon are trademarks of Random House of Canada Limited.

THE DELICATE STORM
Seal Books/published by arrangement with Random House Canada
Random House Canada edition published 2003
Seal Books edition published March 2004

Seal Books are published by Random House of Canada Limited. “Seal Books” and the portrayal of a seal are the property of Random House of Canada Limited.

Visit Random House of Canada Limited’s website:
http://www.randomhouse.ca/

eISBN: 978-0-307-36851-5

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