By the Time You Read This (The John Cardinal Crime Series) - Softcover

Blunt, Giles

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0679315004 ISBN 13: 9780679315001

Publisher: Vintage Canada, 2007

Synopsis

The Planet Grief. An incalculable number of light years from the warmth of the sun. When the rain falls, it falls in droplets of grief, and when the light shines, it is in waves and particles of grief. From whatever direction the wind blows–south, east, north or west– it blows cinders of grief before it. Grief stings your eyes and sucks the breath from your lungs. No oxygen on this planet, no nitrogen; the atmosphere is composed entirely of grief. [By the Time You Read This, page 37]

Catherine Cardinal, wife of Sergeant John Cardinal, is dead. Ruled a suicide, it comes as no real surprise to those who knew her. Catherine had suffered from manic depression for over twenty years. Long stints of hospitalization were followed by healthy periods permeated by worry and anxiousness that everything would once again disintegrate. Her last hospital stay had been over a year ago. Catherine had been finding peace and fulfillment in her photography and taking her medication regularly. From years of experience, Cardinal had taken all of these signs to be positive and hopeful.

So along with coping with devastating grief, Cardinal is confused. Although a suicide note in Catherine’s handwriting was found at the scene, Cardinal isn’t convinced that his wife was responsible for her own death. She was distracted when she left to take pictures the night she died, but she was nowhere near the despondent state she attained when she was ill. It wasn’t adding up.

Everyone in the department, even his partner, Lise Delorme, believes Cardinal’s refusal to accept his wife’s suicide is only the denial that comes with the agony of his loss. Even his daughter, Kelly, has accepted her mother’s fate. But when Cardinal receives a card with a typewritten note inside taunting him about his wife’s death, he is resolute that someone has murdered Catherine.

In Cardinal’s line of work, a man can pile up a lot of enemies. The first likely suspect that comes to his mind is Kiki B., an “associate” of a drug dealer, Rick Bouchard, who he had sent to prison. Kiki B. knew where Cardinal lived and he had an axe to grind–Bouchard had been killed while serving his sentence.

With Delorme wrapped up in a nasty sex crimes case, Cardinal goes it alone. When Kiki B. turns out to have made a career change, Cardinal moves on to other members of the criminal element he’d had the pleasure to put away. As he moves through a long line of suspects, Cardinal finds himself settling on perhaps the most unlikely suspect of all.
From the Hardcover edition.

About this title

From the Back Cover

Named Best Mystery of the Year by The Globe & Mail

In Algonquin Bay, Detective John Cardinal suffers a devastating loss. He arrives at a grisly crime scene only to discover that the victim is his own wife, who left a suicide note at the scene. But when Cardinal begins to receive a series of threatening letters, he suspects that his wife may not have taken her own life—and that there may be more to her suicide note than meets the eye.

BY THE TIME YOU READ THIS

While Cardinal takes time to grieve, his partner, Sargeant Lise Delorme, is investigating a high-profile sex crime involving a young girl whose abuse is being broadcast online—and who appears to be a resident of Algonquin Bay. Things are heating up in this quiet, costal town as both Delorme and Cardinal find themselves tracking predators so diabolical that the accepted bounds of criminal justice no longer apply....

 “The most deeply felt page-turner of the year.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

About the Author

Giles Blunt grew up in North Bay, Ontario. After spending over twenty years in New York City, he now lives in Toronto. He has written scripts for Law & Order, Street Legal and Night Heat. He is the author of Forty Words for Sorrow, for which he won the British Crime Writers’ Macallan Silver Dagger; A Delicate Storm, winner of the Arthur Ellis Award for Best Novel; and Blackfly Season, one of Margaret Cannon’s Best Mysteries of the Year.
From the Hardcover edition.

About this edition

• Publisher: Vintage Canada
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0679315004
• ISBN 13: 9780679315001
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320