David Russell (3)

I will admit from the outset that I enjoy detective fiction, and have for years now — decades even — and seek out the genre's examples when they're set in a location or time-period I know, as I've done nothing in the way of travelling and feel nostalgic about ages of history I never experienced (unless I really did live in Victorian London and the Jazz clubs of Paris in the early 1960s). Place a detective story in Canada (target="_top">Howard Engel's ‘Benny Cooperman’ series, for instance) and I'm in heaven. David Russell does enough to make me ecstatic simply by setting the story in Vancouver, yet Deadly Lessons spins an intricate web of secrets and half-truths that puts me over the top with joy regardless of the setting.

Here's the obligatory plot summary, courtesy of the publisher:

Winston Patrick thought he had left the law behind him. Successful — but dissatisfied — with his career defending the downtrodden of Vancouver's criminal world, Winston trades in the courtroom for the classroom at a rough East Vancouver high school. Soon his past life meets his present, when Carl, a fellow teacher, seeks his legal help after a student threatens to expose a lurid teacher-student love affair.

Reluctantly, Winston has agreed to provide legal defence of Carl's alleged sexual impropriety when the case takes an even uglier turn: the student is murdered, making her alleged lover the prime suspect. Winston and his best friend, Detective Andrea Pearson, find themselves immersed in a murder investigation that could cause an international incident, if it doesn't cost Winston his own life first.

Which is a pretty good attempt at boiling down one of the most satisfyingly convoluted plots I've read in a long time.

Mr. Russell has a dab hand at creating characters and events that are both realistic and really satisfying to the reader, his dual experience as an actor and a high-school teacher clearly being dipped into on a regular basis for the creation of this first work. The situation the protagonist finds himself in may be extreme, but it is far from unimaginable. By the time we get to the end — and the body count begins to rival Romeo & Juliet or Hamlet — results may be into the "extremely rare" category for Vancouver, but it's still not far-fetched and the reader no longer cares as the story has you firmly grasped by the throat and you need to get to the end so as to accompany the ex-lawyer/teacher throughout his adventure.

We care about the characters, as Mr. Russell makes them complex and multi-layered without being complicated and unnecessarily multi-faceted. People are who they seem, yet never even verge on the one-dimensional stereotypes so often encountered in the sub-par iterations of the fiction category. This is not a cheap detective novel, but truly a mystery that we are working through, for the duplicitous statements and prevarications of those involved are extremely effective to keep the reader from knowing what's going on, we are brought so firmly and convincingly into the thinking of Winston Patrick as he feels his way through territory which is equally unfamiliar to him as to ourselves.

Mr. Russell does work the setting a little too frequently at times, almost playing tourist guide upon occasion. We don't need to know quite as much about the route of Winston's jogging around the University of British Columbia as we get, surely; and we certainly don't need to know — as he passes the head of Trail 6 — that he's “never had the balls (so to speak)" to visit Wreck Beach. That said, the details are helpful to imagine the events, even if they may be less than enlightening to those from other lands. Still, if a writer uses all of his material up too soon, then they have nothing left for the next book.

Oddly underdeveloped is a conflict with the Principal of the East Vancouver High School that Mr. Patrick teaches at, as well as many of the other Staff Members there. The Principal has to deal with the death of a Student who may have been having an affair with a Teacher who may have killed them, and the accused is being defended by another of the Teaching Staff. His breathing down the neck of Mr. Patrick might have been welcomed as an additional wrinkle, but given the already prune-like nature of the tale I can imagine either the author or his Editor saying "great stuff… maybe too much stuff?"

At just under 300 pages and with an outer size of less than "Large Crown" size (this volume sits at 190mm x 130mm),one doesn't have to set aside too huge an amount of time for the enjoyment of the story. But tossing this in a carry-on bag for the plane, into an over-coat pocket of a commuter, or tucking it into the pile of "read these" books at one's bed-side will be a smart thing for anyone.

An enjoyable book by a writer who, if he can maintain this level of storytelling, has a long career ahead of him. In fact, more than once while reading I thought to myself "damn, this is good stuff… Pity he's not with Humdrumming, though." When a writer makes a rival Publishing & Commissioning Editor do that, well…

RATING: ♦♦♦♦◊

Read the original review at: this blog entry… (mere)