In the Shadow of the Glacier

Hamilton Spectator. Don Graves. Nov 17, 2007

Author Vicki Delany begins a new series with In The Shadow Of The Glacier. She brings to this different setting and new characters the same imaginative precision and readability evident in her earlier work, especially Burden Of Memory.

Introducing Constable Molly (Moonbeam) Smith, daughter of Vietnam era parents, Delany uses her well-crafted sense of description to offer political and small-town insights. Her fresh, realistic ear for dialogue brings this new character alive.

Trafalgar, British Columbia, is the beneficiary of a bequest to build a memorial garden to honour the memory of Vietnam War draft-dodgers. Some citizens, including Molly's mother, approve while others fear it will upset the town's lucrative American tourist trade.

A key opponent to the garden is found viciously murdered and Molly's reluctant partner, D.S. Winters, is not only fed up with life in general but is particularly unhappy with having a screwup rookie constable dropped in his lap.

An American TV personality lands on the scene ready to exploit the situation for every ounce of Media attention he can get.

Delany knows how to set up conflict and nourish and exploit it with a provocative insight into what drives her characters to actions that ultimately end with murder.

Delany writes with a painter's landscape palette and a storyteller's deft hand at spinning a good tale.

Mystery Lovers Bookshop (mysterylovers.com). October 2007

Vicki Delaney, the talented author of two previous standalones, looks to be launching a terrific series with the introduction of young constable Molly Smith in the town of Trafalgar, British Columbia. Molly seeks success in her police career by throwing herself into the investigation of the death of a developer who had a long list of folks who wanted him dead while she seeks the approval of her hippie parents and a tough sergeant newly arrived from Vancouver. An excellent portrait of small town life with a plot that relies on character and motive for its resolution.

Sue O’Brien, Booklist

After the murder of developer Reginald Montgomery, rookie constable Molly "Moonlight" Smith is partnered with Sergeant John Winters because of her knowledge of the people and local politics in her hometown of Trafalgar, British Columbia. Although Molly is delighted with her assignment, former Vancouver cop Winters is less enthusiastic. Montgomery opposed the proposed Commemorative Peace Garden, which was to honor Vietnam War draft dodgers, believing it would be bad for business. In addition, he was in the process of financing the Grizzly Resort, which many local residents opposed on environmental grounds. Curiously, Montgomery's wife seems strangely unaffected by his death. Molly and Winters investigate while surrounded by protesters on both sides of the peace-garden issue. Complicating matters, Molly's former-hippie mother is an outspoken advocate of the pro–peace garden position. An unlikely police officer but a likable lead character, Molly shows her mettle in this initial offering in a promising series set in the Canadian wilderness.

A plan to build both a memorial park for Vietnam draft dodgers and a fancy new resort tears a small Canadian town apart.

Constable Moonbeam "Molly" Smith is the daughter of Vietnam-era activists. Although her father has lost his taste for demonstrations, her mother is leading a pro-park, anti-resort group. When one of the men pushing to build the resort is found murdered, Molly is assigned to assist DS John Winters, an experienced investigator who's not pleased with his rookie partner. Although the murdered man's wife is dry-eyed, Winters rules out her and her dentist lover as suspects and looks instead for a possible connection with the protest movement. After a right-wing TV host stirs up trouble with his grossly one-sided reports, outside agitators arrive to fight against the park, which they consider an insult to veterans. Molly's stolen bike is the least of her worries. Her parents, who've never approved her choice of profession, seem on the verge of divorce, and her best friend blames her when she's badly beaten by a stalker Molly warned her against. But Molly slowly wins Winter's respect. Despite her rookie mistakes, her local knowledge helps him track down a killer before the town explodes.

An exciting series debut from Delaney (Burden of Memory, 2006, etc.), featuring complex characters with plenty of room to grow.

Publishers Weekly:

Delany's intriguing series opener introduces young constable Molly Smith, who almost literally stumbles across a rare murder victim in peaceful Trafalgar, British Columbia. The deceased, Reg Montgomery, was a widely distrusted newcomer planning to develop a luxury resort outside the town, making for a long list of suspects. The community is further divided by Smith's mother's plans for a public memorial to American draft resisters who fled to Canada during the Vietnam War. Struggling to recover from the death of her husband, build a career on the force and win the approval of her hippie parents and hard-edged Sgt. John Winters, newly arrived from Vancouver with his own set of personal problems, Smith throws herself into solving the case. Delany (Burden of Memory) carefully sets up the conflicts, resolving most but not all in anticipation of the next assignment, and begins what looks to be some extensive character development for the otherwise archetypal Winters and Smith. (Oct.)

Library Journal 9/1/2007:

Molly Smith, the daughter of two American peaceniks who fled to Canada in the 1970s, is a rookie police officer in the small town of Trafalgar, B.C. When she finds a dead man in an alley, her investigation leads to a group committed to dedicating a memorial to U.S. draft dodgers; Molly's mother happens to be the group's leader. Writing in the quiet voice of a 26-year-old woman striving to succeed in a job of which her parents disapprove, Delany (Burden of Memory) launches a new traditional series about Canadian small-town life that may appeal to fans of Louise Penny's Quebec cozies.

*Scare the Light Away was a selection of the CBC radio mystery panel.

The complete list:
Sounds Like Canada's Mystery Book Panel - Tuesday, June 14

Linda Wiken's choices:
"Cherry Bites", Alison Preston, Signature
"A Summer House", Christobel Kent, Penguin
"The Rossiter File", Thomas Rendell Curran, Breakwater Press
"Blackfly Season" Gilles Blunt, Random House
"Scare the Light Away",Vicki Delany, Poisoned Pen Press

JD Singh choices:
"Land of the Blind" and "Citizen Vince",Jess Walter,Regan Books
" Double Eagle", James Twining, HarperCollins
"Frostline", Justin Scott, Poisoned Pen Press
"Freezeout",Rick Gadziola, ECW Press

Margaret Cannon choices:
"The Right Madness", James Crumley, Viking
"Night's Child", Maureen Jennings, McClelland and Stewart
"Swing", Rupert Holmes, Random House
"All Shook Up", Mike Harrison, ECW Press

Burden of Memory:

Margaret Cannon, the Globe and Mail:

The best Canadian novels are always firmly set in a place. We think of Giles Blunt's icy Algonquin Bay, William Gough's gritty Vancouver, Gail Bowen's Saskatoon, Kathy Reichs's Montreal. Ontario's Muskoka playland has been a draw for more than a century. The Group of Seven painted it and Margaret Millar set her first novel in its woods. Vicki Delany's second novel effectively uses the Muskoka setting for a very fine novel about memory and class and caste in old Ontario.

Elaine Benson is a writer, researcher and PhD in Canadian history. She's written two novels about women who confronted nature, men and propriety to survive and thrive in the Canadian wilderness. But Benson didn't learn from her forebears. She's spent the last decade working on television scripts for a husband who dumped her the second he sold a successful series. She's starting over, and the chance to write the memoirs of Moira Madison seems made in heaven.

Madison is a member of one of the oldest and wealthiest families in Canada. She's lived a long and very successful life, which saw her on the front lines of the Second World War as a nurse and, later, participating in international medical charities. She is also, as Benson quickly discovers, a woman of intelligence and stature. Someone who has lots of stories to tell.

Benson and Madison seem ideally suited and Benson is happy to take up residence in the lavish Madison "cottage," full of history and luxuries. But someone doesn't want the story of Moira Madison written, and is willing to kill to keep the family secrets.

Delany has done a great job with this book, much better than her debut, Scare the Light Away. This is, obviously, ideal reading for a weekend at the cottage, or as a hostess gift for visitors. Read it under the trees and see every page come to life.

From Publishers Weekly

Delany's fine second mystery (after 2005's Scare the Light Away) offers a breath of fresh air from north of the border. Soon after Elaine Benson agrees to assist Miss Moira Madison, who served with the Canadian Army Nursing Sisters during WWII, with her memoirs, Elaine learns that the first writer Moira hired drowned in the lake by Moira's summer "cottage" after less than a week on the job. Later, as members of the privileged Madison clan gather at the cottage in Ontario's Muskoka region for Thanksgiving, tensions mount, culminating in a fire. Elaine suspects that someone will go to great lengths to prevent Moira from revealing certain family secrets. The alternating rhythm of chapters of contemporary narrative and shorter sections of Moira's recollections of life as an army nurse helps build suspense. The striking setting, the picture of the Canadian social elite and several deftly handled subplots make for a richly textured and highly satisfying read. (June)

© Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Bookloons.com

Being proud of the work she did as a Canadian nursing sister attached to the British Army during World War II, elderly Moira Madison wishes to record her memoirs. She doesn't want the contributions she and others like herself gave to go unrecognized, while she still bridles at the barriers put in front of her in the early part of her life simply because she was a woman!

Moira employs Elaine Benson, a recognized author, to put her papers, letters and memorabilia in order and write the story of an unusual woman's life. Sound reasonable? Except for one little hitch. Someone in this wealthy background doesn't want those memories dredged up. The first person hired to do the writing ended up floating face down in the lake after a week. Undaunted, Elaine - who needs this breather to get her life back into some semblance of reality - wades in with both eyes wide open. Maybe not such a good idea. Things start happening that would scare off the more timid of people. But Moira and Elaine are not timid and they press on.

The time period in this highly readable book flips from today to the war and then back, over and over again, seamlessly without losing the thread of the plot. The scenes of war torn London bring back my own memories of Pathay News coverage of the London Blitz. Moira is a tough old bird who stands up for herself and has little time for those who don't. She is gracious, though, and generous. A great character. Elaine, of course, lives in today's world and so looks at things a little differently. But for all that, she is the right person for the right job.

Vicki Delany has written a tell-it-all book that is hard to put down. Secrets keep popping up. Just when you think everything has fallen into place, another punch comes from left field and knocks your theories asunder. Burden of Memory is a good second book from a writer who knows her craft.

Mary Ann Smyth. Bookloons.com

A young woman goes to an island in Canada’s northern forest to help an elderly woman write the memoirs of her work with the Canadian Army Nursing Sisters during WWII, but when she begins to research the old documents she discovers that someone has killed to keep the past buried. I loved this for the sense that Delany gives us of a vanished world set in the cold, chilly atmosphere of primeval northern forest.

Clues Unlimited

Many Canadians have hazy images of the heyday of the Muskokas, often based on Tamarack's lyrics or Leacock's stories. In these images, the Muskokas are a tame version of the Canadian wilderness; the water and forests juxtaposed with the enormous 'cottages' to which wealthy Torontonians escaped for the entire summer, bringing a full staff of servants with them to their wilderness getaways, of course. This vision of the decorous lifestyle of the elite on holiday in the Muskokas is a particularly Canadian version of a period that appears far more elegant and gracious than our own - for the families, if not the servants. For a balanced view, it is important to remember that this period, finally concluded by World War II, saw terrible suffering, and the moneyed elite who summered in the Muskokas did not escape. But can any period of history be so neatly encapsulated; tidily contained within the boundaries of the turn of the century and the end of World War II? In 'Burden of Memory', long-ago events still cast their shadows and ghosts of old tragedies linger on.

Moira Benson rules her family's historic Muskoka cottage with both generosity and a certain degree of rigidity, hosting the remainder of her family when they make the traditional pilgrimage to the Muskokas for holiday weekends. As she nears the end of her life, she decides to have a memoir written focussing on her experiences as a Canadian Army Nursing Sister during World War II. The first writer she hires cannot swim, and drowns in the lake during a Benson family holiday weekend. The death must surely be a tragic accident - although the police seem less certain - and Elaine Benson, Moira's second choice, agrees to take on the job. Elaine revels in the opportunity to return to her first love, Canadian history, after having been lured away during her unhappy marriage, but some of the Bensons are less enthusiastic about the memoir. Elaine herself becomes convinced that Moira is leaving out important details of her life story.

The action moves backwards and forwards between the present day and the period just before and during World War II, during which Moira matured from a girl to a woman. The physical and mental agonies of war are in stark contrast with the gentle aging of the old cottage and the somewhat more irascible aging of its chatelaine.

In describing Moira's early adulthood and old age, "Burden of Memory" combines a view of the last of the great days of the Muskoka summer cottages with a tribute to the Canadians in World War II. In both cases, the approach is clear-eyed and unsentimental.

The mysteries - there are actually two of them - are a little slight for a mystery novel, but work well to tie together the two eras in the story, reminding us how the past lives on in the memory and actions of those who survive. I would highly recommend 'Burden of Memory' to anyone wanting a light mystery with more depth than usual.

Booksnbytes

Some reviews of Scare the Light Away

The Chicago Tribune By Dick Adler. Published March 6, 2005

The idea of a woman returning for the first time in the 30 years since she fled from her dysfunctional, small-town family gets a poetic, honest and believably frightening treatment in this first mystery by Vicki Delany, one of Canada's most promising new practitioners of the crime genre. (I should note that Poisoned Pen Press has agreed--for reasons best known to its editors--to publish a collection of my reviews and essays in the fall.)A major part of Delany's success is the mixture of love and anger with which she describes life in Hope River, the Ontario village where Rebecca McKenzie grew up and where little has changed since she escaped, first to Toronto and then to Vancouver. "We walked silently back to the house," McKenzie says. "The cloud blanket dispersed as night settled in but the moon had not yet risen. With no high leafy trees to shade them, the harsh yellow light from the street lamps shone far too bright, blocking any sight of stars on this clear night."But the heartbreaking spine of "Scare the Light Away" is the diary of McKenzie's mother, a revealing and vivid document that not only helps advance the mystery's plot (a young girl has been murdered, and McKenzie's troubled brother is a leading suspect) but that also shows how bleak life was in Hope River during World War II--especially when one of the men left behind was a British war bride's insane father-in-law. Delany does everything right, adding enough twists to a familiar story to make her Hope River, past and present, the place from which we all could have escaped.

Lou Allin - www.louallin.com

Scare the Light Away

Thomas Wolfe said that you can't go home again, but when you must, there is a price. Rebecca McKenzie left her dysfunctional family in small-town Ontario and made an investment career for herself on the West Coast. Then her fairy-tale marriage turned to dust after her husband's fatal accident. Now with her mother dead and her father failing, she finds herself returning after thirty years to the hardscrabble farming area, on the edge of cottage country and in an economic revival. Encounters with her brother and sister reveal a bitter history, and she's tempted to abandon any attempt at reconciliation. Cleaning up, she discovers her mother's diaries, begun in wartime England and continuing in her new home in Canada. Instead of a dream, Janet McKenzie found a nightmare under the hand of a tyrannical patriarch who abused his wife and drove his son to alcohol. Unable to stop despite her growing disgust and pity, Rebecca reads on, learning why her mother turned over her small inheritance to help her daughter escape the same horror. Meanwhile the disappearance of a young girl plunges the town of Hope River into chaos and sets neighbour against neighbour. Could it be connected with Rebecca's only brother, the black sheep of the family? Or has he mended his ways with his new marriage?

Delany pulls back the bedcovers in this knife-edged portrayal of a family taking arms against itself. Her descriptions of the scenic but deadly bush parallel the danger that lies under the surface of a community. Characters alive with sins and sensibility advance the plot while pages turn in the diary. Rebecca, hardened in her own ways, holds the key to redemption. With her faithful dog Sampson by her side, she battles personal doubts and inadequacies. Delaney's fresh, lyrical prose illuminates each paragraph. The evocative title comes from a scene in a dark basement. "I leaned up against the freezer and shone the flashlight into Sampson's eyes. She didn't like it and snapped her jaws to scare the light away."

Delany is as deft at animal psychology as she is with human behaviour. With mature themes, a matchless historical vision, and a window on the soul, this debut novel establishes her as a force in Canadian fiction.

Margaret Cannon - Globe and Mail 2 April, 2005

Scare the Light Away

Vicki Delany has a great narrative voice, fine, well-developed characters and a real eye for the small details that keep a novel in place. Her solid debut is set in the small farming community of Hope River, in northern Ontario. Rebecca McKenzie is a recently widowed financial whiz, who's come from Vancouver for her mother's funeral. This is her first visit to Hope River since she left for university 30 years before. She has no good memories of the place, other than her mother, and she's prepared to believe the worst of everyone. Including, possibly, that her brother might be a rapist and a murderer. Rebecca's self-discoveries are the best part of the book, and ultimately, the murder is less a whodunit than a story about coming to terms with loss. This is Faye Kellerman territory.

Publishers Weekly:

Well-crafted storytelling and an evocative setting make for a rewarding debut from Canadian newcomer Delany. Prodigal daughter Rebecca McKenzie, a widow and thriving Vancouver executive, returns to Hope River, her suffocating Ontario hometown, for the first time in 30 years, to attend the funeral of her mother, the only family member from whom she’s not estranged. While she stays tethered via the phone lines to her office, she struggles to resolve old grudges with her older siblings, further complicated by her brother’s possible involvement with a young woman’s disappearance. The extra time at home with her seemingly forlorn father reacquaints her with her family in the present; 60 years of her mother’s diaries give her a chance to see that things in Hope River aren’t how she remembers them and possibly were never really what she thought they were. The diary narrative, presented in alternating chapters, is especially poignant, chronicling the hard life of a young English war bride trapped in the isolation of Canada, where her new father-in-law is as cold and vicious as the winters. The only drawback is the secondary characters-cartoonish villains and too-good-to-be-true allies-who detract from Delany’s otherwise skillful and layered depictions. (Mar. 28)

Kirkus Reviews:

A dysfunctional Canadian family struggles toward redemption. Janet McKenzie's funeral brings Becky, her youngest daughter, home to tiny Hope River for the first time in 30 years. A posh Vancouver banker coping with widowhood by lavishing all her love on her husband's dog (Sampson), Becky, who now prefers to be called Rebecca, must face a plethora of demons: Shirley, her embittered sister; Jimmy, her ex-con brother; Bob, the alcoholic dad whose grief sends him sliding in and out of dementia; and memories of the tyrannical, abusive grandfather who terrorized the whole family. In sorting through her mother's things, Rebecca finds a series of journals recounting every loathsome deed that befell her since coming to Hope River as an English war bride back in 1946. Appalling as some of them were, they pale beside Rebecca's own horror while she's out walking Sampson-finding first the scarf, then the body of missing teenager Jennifer Taylor. When the townsfolk are quick to blame Jimmy, Rebecca, intent on helping him and his wife Aileen, is harassed, brutalized and ultimately forced to violence herself. Not so much reveling in family secrets as insisting that families can overcome them, debut novelist Delany is adept at ratcheting up the emotional tension but less proficient at making the mystery elements of her story convincing.

I Love a Mystery Newsletter. Reviewer: John A. Broussard

When a mother dies, even the disenchanted child is apt to come home. Despite bitter memories of life decades before in the small Ontario town, of a despised grandfather, hated brother, indifferent sister and strangely apathetic father, Rebecca McKenzie returns, intending only to attend the funeral and then return to her bank position in Vancouver. But her plans swiftly go awry. Though the town is much as she remembered it, the people have changed—some for the better, some for the worse . . . much worse. Two events will leave an indelible mark on her. One is a missing girl, whose fate has dire consequences for Rebecca and her family. The other is her mother’s voluminous diary describing her encounter with Rebecca's father in England during World War II, the subsequent trip to Canada, and the misery of life in a seriously dysfunctional family. SCARE THE LIGHT AWAY gives penetrating descriptions of its characters, including Rebecca’s dog, who has been her consolation following the death of her much-loved husband. Without question, this novel is a gem. Yet it is not, by any means, a page-turner. Just the opposite. It deserves careful reading and a putting aside to ponder this bizarre world Rebecca finds herself in during a wet and rainy spring in rural Ontario.HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

John Broussard also writes on DorothyL:

Shirley Wetzel's comments about Sampson, the hero dog of Delany's SCARE THE LIGHT AWAY caught her canine spirit--an unobtrusive, likeable, supportive creature who contributes her quiet share to a superb mystery novel.

May we have more dogs like Sampson and more books like STLA.

Murder by the Book (mystery bookstore in Denver, Colorado):

Rebecca McKenzie, a successful Vancouver businesswoman, returns to her small hometown after 30 yrs for her mother’s funeral. She had left behind an abusive grandfather & a brutal childhood. While there, she discovers the diaries her mother kept as a young British war bride, who found herself in the middle of the Canadian wilderness. Meanwhile a girl is missing & Rebecca’s estranged brother is the suspect. This is an excellent debut novel - chilling descriptions & well-drawn characters & relationships make the book a fascinating read, as do the details of life in rural post-war Canada.

Poisoned Pen.com

Delany, Vicki. Scare the Light Away (Poisoned Pen $25 Signed March).

When I read Canadian Delany's manuscript, I was immediately captured by her depiction of Hope River, a small town in Ontario, a province with which I am slightly acquainted. Equally stunning is the way Vicki weaves the story of a British war bride into the mystery. Rebecca McKenzie's mother, a very young and sheltered woman as World War II was fought, met and married a young Canadian soldier. Her diary recounts the romance, the marriage, her fears and excitement as she became pregnant, a young mother, and at war's end, after her husband was demobilized back in Toronto, an immigrant. It's hard for us today to imagine the isolation, the slow communications, the sense of stepping off the edge of the familiar into a vast unknown—with no backup! The story of what she felt and what she actually encountered and how she lived with it flows underneath the modern tale where her family come together to bury her and in the process dig up their—and her—past while coping with the suspicions that rain down around town in the murder of a young girl. Rebecca's brother, Jimmy, is the standout suspect—even in Rebecca's heart. The success of books like Jacqueline Winspear's Maisie Dobbs ($14) reflect our admiration and curiosity for the Greatest Generation and its courage in adversity and for authors who can portray it so admirably.

Theodore Feit, Mystery Morgue:

It is a complete surprise to find that a more experienced author did not write this debut novel. The characters are well-drawn, the writing smooth, descriptions detailed and the plot extremely well-constructed. We couldn't put the book down until it reached an unexpected-but rewarding-conclusion.Rebecca McKenzie, a recently widowed and successful investment banker, returns to a little town in northern Ontario from which she departed 30 years earlier to attend her mother's funeral. She is shown three tea chests of diaries her mother wrote over the years, from which additional entries are interspersed through the novel's progress-more by way of background to current events, but also delving into the character of her parents and grandparents. It is the absorbing tale of a British war bride transplanted in Canada to a miserable and relatively unrewarding life.During Rebecca's short stay, a young girl goes missing and is later found murdered. Rebecca's brother is accused of the murder. Rebecca meanwhile has to confront long-held grievances against her grandfather, father and brother and find "peace" with her family.While doing so, her family has to come to terms with their own prejudices against her for leaving and not remaining a 'good daughter'. In the midst of these developments, of course, there is the real murderer to be found. It is not often this reviewer states the following: Read this book-you'll love it.