The fourth book in Aubert's Ellis Portal mystery series. The complete series is: Free Reign (1997); The Feast of Stephen (1999); The Ferryman Will Be There (2001); Leave Me by Dying (2003); and The Red Mass (2005) -- the final Ellis Portal novel.

Leave Me By Dying is told almost completely in flashback, and recounts the history of Ellis Portal's early law school career at the University of Toronto. (Advancement of the series' back story, involving Ellis' return to the practice of law and burgeoning career as a Don Valley property developer is limited to the first couple pages of the book.)

It's 1965, and the news is full of Lyndon Johnson's decision to escalate the Vietnam war, the space race and the Selma to Montgomery marches. In Toronto's Yorkville (then a stronghold of hippie counter-culture, now reduced to an overpriced mall for the uber-affluent) would-be poets recite anti-war verse and American draft dodgers blend in with Canadian students. Ellis, intent on leaving his immigrant roots behind (he's already anglicized his Italian first and last names), plots his path from law school to an internship with the enigmatic Magistrate Sheldrake Tuppin. But while Ellis' activist brother Michele attempts to interest him in the case of Native-American draft dodger Billy Johnson, obnoxious classmate Gleason Adams wants him to collaborate on another project: investigating the murder of a female corpse who mysteriously disappears from the Toronto morgue. Ellis' destiny hangs in the balance -- dutiful son or family-smashing rebel? Rags-to-riches white collar barrister or radical law reformer?

Leave Me By Dying is a good story as far as it goes, but as the fourth (and penultimate) volume in the Ellis Portal series it was a little disappointing. What was originally great about this series -- the intriguing premise of a former Toronto judge living rough in the Don Valley ravine -- is all but lost. No sign of Ellis' Cree love interest, Queenie Johnson (unless you happen to notice she has the same last name as Billy), no word from Ellis' yuppie lawyer daughter. The "prequel" device is really just a way for Aubert to write about an entirely different character -- Ellis before The Fall -- and I'd just as soon she'd written this book as an entirely separate novel with no attachment to the Ellis Portal series.

RELEASE NOTES:

I'll be leaving this book on top of the newspapers at Mangez Mangez on my way in to work this morning, around 9 am. Best wishes and happy reading to whomever finds it.