Journal Entry 1 by KathleenMolloy on Wednesday, June 04, 2008

Launching Canadian authors into the wild
via west Quebec! 

Journal Entry 2 by KathleenMolloy on Sunday, June 15, 2008

Another west Quebec author being launched into the wild via Winnipeg Manitoba... 

Journal Entry 3 by gypsysmom from Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada on Monday, June 23, 2008

Thanks for the book. I love the cover. I think I will keep this one for holidays and then I can release it into the wild in Alberta or BC. And thank you for the very cute note and kind comments. I will be pming you about the trade. 

Journal Entry 4 by KathleenMolloy on Tuesday, June 24, 2008

The second book on my list for the 2nd Canadian Book Challenge (and my second west local author) is mystery writer Mary Jane Maffini with Speak Ill of the Dead.

Maffini is hugely popular in my neck of the woods for her 3 sleuth series, two of which are set around Canada's capital region. I decided to start with the first book of the Camilla McPhee series and I enjoyed the trickles of local recognition all through it. Some of the victims were colourful believable Ottawa personalities and I found myself likening them to certain real Ottawa personalities who were colourful in the late 90s. And I think this is a danger in reading local authors because I’ve discovered a tendency I have to create real-life plotlines in other author’s works!

Let me first explain that I am by no means a lover of murder mysteries. I'm too suspicious of every character and too impatient to wait for the clues to be laid out. But I am attracted to vulnerable characters and Camilla McPhee is certainly an earnest misfit. I tend to cheer on the underdog, and as the boss of Justice for Victims we meet Camilla ready to spring into the ring as soon as the bell goes.
By the end of the book there were two things that I didn’t figure out about Maffini’s protagonist Camilla McPhee. She had a real reservation toward men, men in general, and I didn’t know if it was because her beau died before the Speak Ill of the Dead or if it was because as boss of Victims of Justice she had run into a number of creeps during her career. I also couldn’t place her age. I think that might be because McPhee is a bit of a fuddy-duddy for me. I’d like to read the latest McPhee book in the series The Dead Don't Get Out Much to see if Maffini has sexed her up a bit over time.

What I found neat is that while reading Speak Ill of the Dead I kept thinking about Maffini’s other sleuths. She didn’t stop with McPhee. She stashed a few bodies for Fiona Silk and Charlotte Adams to find too. Has does an author carry so many characters around in her head without fearing that they will spill out into the wrong story?

Maffini is a founding member of The Ladies' Killing Circle Inc. and has been a guest columnist on The Lipstick Chronicals.

http://www.crimewriterscanada.com/pages/circle.html

http://thelipstickchronicles.typepad.com/the_lipstick_chronicles/2008/03/strike-three-bu.html

Visit her site http://www.maryjanemaffini.ca/ to discover where she will stash the next corpse.

From Maffini’s websie:
Speak Ill of the Dead - 1999 RendezVous Press
By Mary Jane Maffini
In the first book in the series, Camilla's best friend, Robin Findlay, is found in a hotel room with a murdered journalist during Ottawa's annual Tulip Festival. Many many people felt like killing Mitzi Brochu but for some reason the police decide Robin has something to do with the crime. Maybe it's the blood on her hands. Maybe it's because she won't say what she was doing there. It's up to Camilla to keep Robin out of the slammer even as the killer strikes again. And again. Each time the danger gets a bit closer to home. Meanwhile Camilla's family, her so-called office staff member Alvin Ferguson and chain-smoking, sherry-guzzling nosy neighbour, Mrs. Violet Parnell, run interference every step of the way. To make matters worse, her favourite sister is making eyes at her least-favourite police officer. And what the devil are all those damn cats up to? Speak Ill of the Dead was short listed for the Crime Writers of Canada Arthur Ellis award for Best First Mystery of 1999.
304 pages / 5 1/8 x 7 1/2 / ISBN 0-929141-65-2

Kathleen Molloy 

Journal Entry 5 by gypsysmom from Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada on Saturday, August 16, 2008

Speak Ill of the Dead would probably be classified as a cozy mystery but I can't think of anyone further from Miss Jane Marple as a sleuth than Camilla MacPhee. Camilla is feisty, passionate, funny and dogged. When her best friend Robin is suspected of murdering Mitzi Brochu, a vicious fashion guru, Camilla is determined to find out who the real murderer is because she knows Robin is not capable of murder.

She isn't really helped by Robin because Robin has been bedridden ever since discovering Mitzi's body. Instead Camilla uses unlikely allies like Alvin, her punkrocker assistant, Ted Beamish, a law school colleague, and Richard Sandes, good-looking manager of the hotel Mitzi was murdered in. Camilla knows Robin knows or suspects someone and is protecting him or more probably her. Getting to the bottom of the crime takes many hours and puts Camilla in danger. On top of all that she is also looking after Robin's six cats in her apartment that does not allow cats. The nosy neighbour, Mrs. Parnell, starts out as a problem but ends up being a godsend.

I didn't really figure out who the villain was until the end but I did have my suspicions because he seemed too good to be true. I thought Maffini did a good job of throwing up red herrings but she needs more practise before she can be in the same class as Agatha Christie.

I enjoyed the setting in Ottawa since I spent ten weeks there and knew many of the spots mentioned. I also enjoyed the character of Alvin since I once had a male secretary who was about as useless at secretarial duties as Alvin was. (Fortunately I never had any murders to solve so I don't know if he would have been useful in that capacity.)

I am looking forward to reading more of Maffini's works. It's nice to have another Canadian mystery writer to discover. Thanks for the introduction, Kathleen, I really enjoyed it. 

Journal Entry 6 by gypsysmom at McDonald Creek in Provincial Park, British Columbia Canada on Saturday, August 16, 2008

Released 3 yrs ago (8/15/2008 UTC) at McDonald Creek in Provincial Park, British Columbia Canada

WILD RELEASE NOTES:

WILD RELEASE NOTES:

I left this book in a BookCrossing bag on a log on the beach. Having now made its way across the West from western Quebec, I wonder where this book will go next. Happy travelling!

This release is for the 2008 Keep Them Moving challenge.