The Calling: A Hazel Micallef Mystery - Softcover

Wolfe, Inger Ash

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0771088965 ISBN 13: 9780771088964

Publisher: McClelland & Stewart, 2009

Synopsis

Voted one of the Best Mystery Books of 2008 by Publisher's Weekly

This dazzling crime-fiction debut—a dark, haunting, compassionate story of the hunt for a killer motivated by love—will be the international publishing event of the season.

This brilliant debut mystery has it all: characters so realistic they rise off the page; a devious plot that delivers both psychological depth and emotional heights; exceptionally fine, deft writing; a stunning cross-Canada manhunt; a detective like no other; and the promise of more mysteries in the series.

The first homicide that Detective Inspector Hazel Micallef, acting chief of the Port Dundas police, has had to investigate in almost three years is that of cancer patient Delia Chandler, a woman who once had an affair with Hazel’s father. When a few days later, and three hundred kilometres away, the mutilated body of an MS sufferer is found, painted in Chandler’s blood, Micallef realizes that someone is killing the terminally ill, and not for mercy’s sake. Hobbled by a bad back and a skeptical police bureaucracy, Inspector Micallef takes it upon herself to coordinate a nationwide manhunt for the killer; a man, she soon learns, who can save a life as dramatically as he can end one—a man with God on his mind, grief in his heart, and a desperate need to kill.

About this title

From the Inside Flap

Detective Inspector Hazel Micallef has lived all her days in the small town of Port Dundas, and is now making her way toward retirement with something less than grace. Hobbled by a bad back and a dependence on painkillers, and feeling blindsided by divorce after nearly four decades of marriage, sixty-one-year-old Hazel has only the constructive criticism of her old goat of a mother and her own sharp tongue to buoy her. But when a terminally ill Port Dundas woman is gruesomely murdered in her own home, Hazel and her understaffed department must spring to life. And as one after another terminally ill victim is found?their bodies drained of blood, their mouths sculpted into strange shapes?Hazel finds herself tracking a truly terrifying serial killer across the country while everything she was barely holding together begins to spin out of control.

Through the cacophony of her bickering staff, her unsupportive superiors, a clamoring press, the town’s rumor mill, and her own nagging doubts, Hazel can sense the dead trying to call out. But what secret do they have to share? And will she hear it before it’s too late?

In The Calling, Inger Ash Wolfe brings a compelling new voice, and an irresistible new heroine, to the mystery world.

From the Back Cover

ADVANCE PRAISE FOR THE CALLING

"The Calling had me from the first page and never let me go. I absolutely loved Hazel Micallef."?Kate Atkinson, bestselling author of Case Histories and One Good Turn 

"The Calling is a wonderful, creepy and suspenseful novel with enough twists and compelling characters to make you want to devour it all at one sitting."?Peter Robinson, author of the Inspector Banks novels

"The Calling is that rare unplug-the-phone, skip-all-meals, ignore-your-bedtime thriller. It’s twisty, sharp and very, very creepy?and Det. Hazel Micallef is a perfectly original charmer."?Gillian Flynn, author of Sharp Objects

About this edition

• Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0771088965
• ISBN 13: 9780771088964
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 432