- Hardcover: 384 pages
- Publisher: HarperCollins (17 Jan 2005)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0007151349
- ISBN-13: 978-0007151349
- Product Dimensions: 23 x 15.2 x 3.6 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 379,935 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Review
Reviews of Forty Words for Sorrow
‘Intensely vivid characters, terrible crimes and a brutal deep-frozen landscape all prove beyond a reasonable doubt that cold nurtures good and evil as readily as heat…and that Giles Blunt is a really tremendous crime novelist’ Lee Child
‘One of the finest crime novels I’ve ever read. Giles Blunt writes with uncommon grace, style and compassion and he plots like a demon. This book as it all – unforgettable characters, beautiful language, throat-constricting suspense’ Jonathan Kellerman
‘A taut and enthralling tale that is as dark as the Canadian winter setting is cold. Humane, intelligent and gripping, Forty Words for Sorrow is a haunting journey into the human heart in all its complexities’ Val McDermid
‘A fine debut that deserves to do well, and promises much from a talented new author’ Jim Driver, Time Out
‘A superior Canadian police procedural with an evocative sense of place: the frozen lakes and forests are as integral to the plot as the flawed detective … an impressive achievement’ Maxim Jakubowski, Guardian
The Irish Independent, 8th January 2005
"Great stuff, action all the way in a wonderfully drawn impossibly remote location."
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
11 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
One of the things that I enjoy about the Cardinal and Delorme books is the setting. Blunt is able to drop a reader right into Northern Ontario the same way that James Lee Burke puts you into the backwoods of Louisiana. I like this fellow's writing so much that I bought this one in the UK release rather than waiting the additional six months for the US edition, and I wasn't disappointed.
In Black Fly Season, Blunt continues to paint a vivid picture of his fictional small city of Algonquin Bay, contrasting it at times with metropolitan Toronto, which is about 200 miles away. Once again, the action scenes, as well as the forensic details, and the bureaucratic nuances of Canadian law enforcement are all firmly in place. There are several spots where the author shows a fantastic sense of humor, one chapter in particular containing some of the funniest exchanges I've read in a long time. The bad guys are perfectly evil, and the mysterious young woman who's shooting kicks off the investigation is, of course, much more complicated than she seems initially.
On the down side, while Cardinal continues to grow as a character, particularly when juxtaposed with his estranged, ingrate daughter and manic depressive wife, Delorme comes off a little one dimensional in this one. In the previous books, Delorme, in my opinion at least, showed as much depth and potential as Rankin's Siobhan Clarke, however, in Black Fly Season, that kind of character work appears to have been omitted. This notwithstanding, the book is an excellent read with short, well-paced chapters, and a plot that could easily be adapted for the big screen. I'm looking forward to the next book in this series.
5 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I can't quite say why I give this novel four stars instead of five. I enjoyed reading it, and Giles Blunt's writing is absolutely brilliant. The writing alone is enough to reccomend his work, enough to allow for great enjoyment: it's slick and smooth and warm and easy and clever and human and very clean. Cardinal's a great protagonist, and his relationship with his manic wife is superb, and Blunt renders it with great empathy. It's all very moving.
Though, while Blunt fires on all guns elsewhere, the plot is just okay. It has a great deal of potential, and indeed starts off very well: but it wasn't particularly interesting, really. Certainly not as much as in previous books. THe central idea of a woman turning in a town, up who cannot remember who she is, or almost anything at all, and yet seems to have had a serious attempt made against her life, is a great one, but Blunt doesn't marry it to any other plot strands of like quality. The rest, really, is a bit predictable, and not too interesting. I never was particularly interested in stories about drugs and drug-running and gangs.
I'd wait for the paperback (certainly, the quality of the hardback leaves a lot to be desires: HarperCollins could put in a bit more effort with the cover, I must say), but I'd still reccomend reading it.
2 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I Like Cardinal and Delorme. I like that this book takes place in Canada. The story flows easily. Somehow I get the feeling that the books before this one were more complex. The start of the book is great. But then story gets a bit ordinary. Drug addicts aren’t that interesting. But Blunt didn’t lose me I just hope that the wait for his next book doesn’t take that long.
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