Book Log #51: On Her Trail, by Marcelle Dubé

[annathepiper]

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I won On Her Trail by Marcelle Dubé as part of Carina Press’ launch promotion, which rather tickled me since it was one of their initial releases I’d scoped out and put onto my buy list. Woo, free book!

If you look at the blurb for this thing, you can see the basic core concept that made me think this might be fun: “Laura Thorsen returns to Canada only to run afoul of the mob”. “Canada” and “mob” are not two concepts I expect to encounter in the same book. Nor are “ghosts” and “mob”, since Laura’s mother turns out to be haunted by the ghosts of her husband and a former lover. So yeah, this sounded fun and I was happy to get a chance to read it.

Overall I found the characters engaging, although the story felt a bit more weighted than I’d have liked towards the paranormal side of things. The backstory on Laura’s mother and the ghosts is excellent, as is the uneasy relationship between Laura and her mother. On the other hand, the suspense side of things, involving the newspaper expose that puts Laura on the run in the first place, doesn’t quite come together for me and I’m not sure why. I can’t say in fairness that it didn’t get as much development as the haunting plot, because it did–it’s just that it seemed like the book was weighted more towards the haunting and the mother/daughter tension than it was towards the mobster/story plot. I think I’d have liked a bit more balance between the two, or perhaps a bit more buildup to the presence of the ghosts in the plot.

Laura and her love interest Mack had some nice lightly played chemistry, and my only regret here is that Mack struck me as almost too laid-back a character. Writing this review several weeks after I actually read the book, I couldn’t remember the poor guy’s name. I couldn’t help it; this is what the book gets for one of the ghosts being named Sawyer, which promptly trumped Mack in my head. (Thank you, Lost!) Three stars.

Mirrored from annathepiper.org.

Comments

[framlingem.livejournal.com]

Why does nobody ever thing we have organized crime? We totally do.

*random interjection*

[annathepiper]

About which I was pleased to be enlightened! ;)

Marcelle Dubé is, I note, a French-Canadian author. That's one of the things that attracted me to this book, too.

[framlingem.livejournal.com]

I'm not surprised she went the organized crime, route, then - I wasn't able to find out exactly where she's from with a quick google, but if she's from Montreal, she probably grew up hearing news about the biker wars all the time.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2009/04/01/f-biker-gangs.html for more information, but the main two are the Hell's Angels and the Rock Machine, and it's not unusual to hear about various bars being bombed or whatever.

I met this guy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mom_Boucher) once. He bought me a hot dog (charity motorcycle event I was attending with my dad, and I'd lost my meal ticket). I had no idea who he was until I saw footage of him being arrested a couple of weeks later. "Hey, that's that nice ma - oh. Oh my."

EDIT: This (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_Biker_war) started up just as I started really following the news, and continued all through high school.

For other gang things, there used to be a really great Chinese buffet that was totally a front for the Chinese mob. You'd be eating and there'd be men in suits vanishing into the kitchens.

[annathepiper]

Her About the Author bit in my copy of her book says she grew up near Montreal, indeed, although she's living in the Yukon now!

And ooh, thanks for the links!