Under the Dragon's Tail by Maureen Jennings

Under the Dragon's Tail: A Murdoch Mystery is a police procedural set in Toronto, Canada in the late 1800s. Detective Murdoch is summoned to investigate the death of a woman in a rundown rooming house. At first, it appears to be an accident, a drunken fall. However, evidence soon indicates that the woman, Dolly Merishaw, was murdered. Dolly was a mean, hard living, beer drinking, midwife and abortionist. She had three charges in her care; a mute daughter and two young fosters, both boys. Once Murdoch learns this about the victim, he's convinced that she has met with foul play. When another body turns up in the same house, Murdoch isn't sure if he's after one or two murderers.

I was quite excited to be able to review this book. My husband and I are avid viewers of the TV show, Murdoch Mysteries, which is based on the Murdoch Mystery books by Maureen Jennings. We usually don't watch too many Canadian TV shows, but this one has us hooked. For me, it doesn't hurt that Yannick Bisson is easy on the eyes.

As much as I love the TV show, I loved this book more. I really enjoyed reading it. The storyline was interesting and mostly non-violent, which I really liked. The story was a little more sexual than I thought it was going to be. It wasn't at all gratuitous or over the top, just different from my expectations (more about that later). I also loved that the story, characters actions and scene descriptions were all in keeping with the time period in which the book took place. Even the language that Jennings used fit the time period (see New Words below).

I'm having a hard time separating my feelings for the book from those for the TV show. As I read, I saw the characters as the actors on TV. That would be fine, except that I found myself liking and disliking characters in the book based on whether or not I cared for the actor who portrayed them on TV. As for the sexual sections in the book, again those expectations came from the TV show, which I'm sure have to contend with censors.

New words: There are plenty of new-to-me words in the book. At least some of these were used in the time period in which the book is set. Here's a sampling:
sluggard (page 14): lazy person
quadroon (page 22): an offensive term for somebody with one black and three white grandparents
mithering (page 65): scolding
huckaback (page 103): coarse fabric for towels
tubercles (page 109): lesion
gainsaid (page 129): opposed
enceinte (page 274): pregnant
escritoire (page 282): writing desk
antimacassars (page 284): a piece of fabric place over the back of an armchair to keep it clean.

Highly recommended for mystery lovers. Even if you don't watch the TV show, I'm sure you'll like this book. I'm definitely going to pick up more of these Murdoch Mysteries.

For more information about this book or to browse inside, please visit McClelland & Stewart'swebsite.

For more information about the author and her other books, please visit Maureen Jennings's website.

I'd like to thank those nice people at McClelland & Stewart and Random House for this review copy.

Under the Dragon's Tail by Maureen Jennings, McClelland & Stewart, ©2003. ISBN 9780771043352(Trade Paperback), 295p.

Runaway Devil by Robert Remington and Sherri Zickefoose

Runaway Devil is the true story of a 12-year-old girl, JR, and her 23-year-old boyfriend, Jeremy Steinke, who murdered her parents and younger brother in Medicine Hat, Alberta. JR "would become the youngest Canadian convicted of multiple homicide and one of the youngest females anywhere to commit familicide, the annihilation of one's entire family." In this book, Remington and Zickefoose, both of the Calgary Herald, examine the evidence and reveal how it all came together in a bizarre story of young love gone seriously awry.

I usually follow news stories like this one. It's like a bad traffic accident you just can't look away from. However, I hadn't heard of this horrific crime before I picked up the book. In fact, not knowing about it was the main reason I wanted to read the book.

Overall, I found the story fascinating. The crime, the criminals, the victims, the whole "goth" world. All of this made it a remarkable read. However, parts were rather dry, especially the sections where the authors described photos or contents of social networking sites pages of JR, Jeremy and the others. I can appreciate that this information was crucial to the story and needed to be included, however, it just didn't come across as exciting reading material. I'm sure the authors did the best they could; I honestly can't think of a better way to present it. The book got better, though, and my interest in it picked up dramatically with the questioning and subsequent trials of JR and Jeremy.

Several photos were included to accompany the text. While they were nice to have, I couldn't figure out why a few of them (photo of the old furniture on the deck at Jeremy's trailer, photos of Grant and Jordan) were included. Granted the authors were limited in that they couldn't show the photos of the majority of the players (JR and her family), but the ones mentioned above didn't add anything to the story for me.

The story of Runaway Devil and Souleater (JR and Jeremy's online personas respectively) was incredible. However, I found it hard to believe that JR and Jeremy didn't know each other's ages. While age becomes a taboo subject among adults, I don't think that's the case with teens. JR lied about her age online, but her close friends must have known what her true age was. Don't teenagers talk to each other? JR's parents were against older guys calling the house for her. I would have thought one of them might have said, "Look, she's only 12." before telling them not to call again. Anyway, we just have their word for what they knew and the two of them did not exactly exemplify trustworthiness. We know that at least one of them was lying about who killed Jacob, JR's younger brother.

The other thing that I found hard to fathom about the story was how a 12-year-old was able to manipulate an adult, a 23-year-old adult, to the point where he was willing to kill for her. Jeremy was desperately seeking acceptance from someone. It's kind of sad that he couldn't find that in someone his own age.

Because JR was a juvenile offender under the age of 18, Canada's Youth Criminal Justice Act was suppose to provide her with anonymity. However, that act doesn't account for the internet. At least not yet. It took me less than 5 minutes to find JR's full name as well as numerous photos of her online. The authors did what they could to comply with Canada's legal restrictions and detailed their efforts in the author's note at the beginning of the book. Maybe one day the laws will catch up with the changing world.

After JR finishes serving her sentence, what will happen to her? Will she be reformed? I didn't get the impression that she fully understands what she's done. Will she get it when she's older? If not, God help us all. As for her sentence, there's got to be a better way to deal with young offenders who commit horrendous crimes. I'll leave all other comments about the law to the pundits.

Recommended. I don't have children, but I can't imagine having a teenage daughter (or son for that matter) and not being scared or a little uneasy after reading this book.


This review can also be viewed on Edwards Magazine Bookclub website.

For more information about this book, please visit McClelland.com or the Runaway Devil website.

I'd like to thank those nice people at Edwards Magazine Bookclub for this review copy.