Windows To The World

Stain on the Berry

A Russel Quant Mystery

 Anthony Bidulka

It’s a beautiful July in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan a Canadian prairie city and Russell Quant is sleeping soundly when a disturbing phone call yanks him into partial consciousness. All he hears is a frightened voice saying,” He’s coming to get me…I don’t know why… but I can’t take it any more!” The woman, for the voice sounds female ends the call without telling Quant her name.

Quant, who was once a policeman, is now a Private Investigator in Saskatoon, a city of about 200,000.  One of its outstanding features is that it purports to have more restaurants per capital than any other in North America. It is a beautiful city on the Saskatchewan River. Usually in the summer things are quite, the population is almost comatose according to Quant who could use a case.

 

It is discovered the next day that the caller was Tanya Cullinare, who after calling Russell jumped from an eighth floor balcony leaving Russell’s business card by her phone. The police determine that it was indeed suicide. Subsequently Tanya’s family contact Quant and ask him to investigate the situation. They has been out of touch with Tanya for a while and wanted to know if it was suicide, why Tanya jumped.

Quant begins his investigation and finds that Tanya’s best friend also died a suspicious death and that several people in a chorus that Tanya belonged to are being stalked and harassed by phone calls and messages that merely say BOO! The harassment escalates to property damage and people are frightened, some enough to leave the country but the police have nothing to go on.

Russell Quant finds out that the ’boogeyman” began his work in the early month’s of the year. When there are several near death experiences and one of Quant’s friends is cruelly injured the detective works feverishly to find this spook.

Anthony Bidulka tells a great tale with any easy style and amazingly subtle humor. His series which begins with Amuse Bouche is one I highly recommend.