Kaleidoscope (Joanne Kilbourn Mystery) - Hardcover

Bowen, Gail

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0771016891 ISBN 13: 9780771016899

Publisher: McClelland & Stewart, 2012

Synopsis

The thirteenth in Gail Bowen's beloved and award-winning Joanne Kilbourn mystery series promises to be the best of them all: some very bad things happen very, very close to home, and Joanne may never be quite the same again.
 
"Security for any one of us lies in greater abundance for all of us." For many years, this was the core of Joanne's political beliefs, but for a number of reasons, she has drifted away from it. But on the day Joanne retires from her university teaching post, she has a dream about her first husband (murdered many years ago), and this line comes back vividly in it.
 
Soon, she is forced to experience the truth of what, for most of her life, had just been a good closing line for a political speech. The night after Jo and Zack have dinner with Zack's colleague Margot and one of his law firm's biggest clients, the developer Leland Hunter, Jo and Zack's house is blown up. They're at the lake with daughter Taylor and their dogs, but the house is destroyed. And that is only the first of several terrible incidents. It isn't long before Joanne is witness to events far more distressing than even a destroyed home. She begins to understand what it's like to live in a world where she can count on nothing.

About this title

About the Author:

GAIL BOWEN's first Joanne Kilbourn mystery, Deadly Appearances (1990), was nominated for the W.H. Smith/Books in Canada Best First Novel Award. Following that, A Colder Kind of Death (1995) won the Arthur Ellis Award for best crime novel; in 2008 Reader's Digest named Bowen Canada's Best Mystery Novelist; in 2009 she received the Derrick Murdoch Award from the Crime Writers of Canada. Bowen has also written plays that have been produced across Canada and on CBC Radio. Now retired from teaching at the First Nations University, Bowen lives in Regina.

Review:

National Bestseller
 
“I love this series... This book brings [Joanne Kilbourn] back to her conscience and her past, and Bowen does it all with panache.”
—Margaret Cannon, The Globe & Mail
 
“Bowen writes beautifully in catching the tone and the minutiae of [Joanne’s] almost flawless familial existence. . . . Keeps readers turning the pages.”
—Jack Batten, Toronto Star
 
“[Gail Bowen is] one of the finest [writers] in Canada.  Kaleidoscope is the 13th Joanne Kilbourn mystery. It’s as fresh and compelling as the first one.”
—Hamilton Spectator
 
“[Bowen asks questions in Kaleidoscope] that really hold the series together, and invite us to fill in past gaps and look forward to future books.”
—National Post
 
 “Bowen is a charming, social-minded writer. I admire her ability to narrate Saskatchewan – it’s beauties and barbarities. As many times as I got excited because I recognized some place from the city I was born in, I was just as ashamed for the us-versus-them tendencies Bowen relates: rich versus poor, white versus aboriginal, family versus business. And yet, the characters Bowen imagines have depth, good intentions that pave the potholed city of Regina. Sure, for marketing sake, Kaleidoscope is a mystery – a good one too. But more so, Bowen is a pundit and socially conscious artist. The commentary and dynamic plot within this novel hold with perfect geometry and colourful ideas viewed through Bowen’s lens.”
— Devin Pacholik, Global News Regina/Patches and Pages blog

About this edition

• Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0771016891
• ISBN 13: 9780771016899
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 336