Detective Inspector Hazel Micallef has lived all her days in the small town of Port Dundas and is now making her way toward retirement with something less than grace. Hobbled by a bad back and a dependence on painkillers, and feeling blindsided by divorce after nearly four decades of marriage, sixty-one-year-old Hazel has only the constructive criticism of her old goat of a mother and her own sharp tongue to buoy her. But when a terminally ill Port Dundas woman is gruesomely murdered in her own home, Hazel and her understaffed department must spring to life. And as one terminally ill victim after another is found—their bodies drained of blood, their mouths sculpted into strange shapes—Hazel finds herself tracking a truly terrifying serial killer across the country while everything she was barely holding together begins to spin out of control. Through the cacophony of her bickering staff, her unsupportive superiors, a clamoring press, the town’s rumor mill, and her own nagging doubts, Hazel can sense the dead trying to call out. But what secret do they have to share? And will she hear it before it’s too late?

‘The Calling‘ is the first of a series of four Canadian crime novels featuring Detective Inspector Hazel Micallef. The book is set mostly in the fictional small town of Port Dundas in Ontario.

This is a serial killer story, which is not normally my sort of thing. They are often too voyeuristic for me, presenting the killings as an expression of the killer’s mania in a way that elevates the killer while treating those killed as human plot devices. The emphasis is often on the violence of the kill rather than the destruction and loss caused by the death. This story avoids most but not all of that. It does this partly because there is an unusual relationship between the killer and those he kills which both gives those killed more agency and mitigates the loss caused by their deaths. The violence, however, remains graphic. 

For me, the serial killer’s motivation was barely feasible, but perhaps that’s because it was based on passionate beliefs that I would struggle with, even if no killing were involved. The plot has a good momentum to it. A strong sense of inevitability that was enlivened by a couple of surprising disclosures along the way. 

What made this book a memorable read wasn’t the killer or the killings but the character of Hazel Micallef. She’s an older woman who has spent her entire career policing the small town she grew up in. She is a strong, determined woman usedto being undervalued by her chain of command, but comfortable in her role in the community. The murder of someone in her town feels personal to her. Instead of handing the case to the RCMP, she becomes determined to find the killer. When her investigations start to uncover a previously unnoticed pattern of killings, she becomes obsessed with the case and pushes herself and her colleagues beyond their normal limits.

I liked and believed in Hazel. She felt real to me. I also liked how the police investigation was presented. The discoveries and the blind spots felt plausible, as did the often fractious relationships between the various police investigators as the pressure to solve the case mounted. 

The ending was unexpected and dramatic. It provided a satisfying conclusion that did more than solve the case; it fundamentally affected how Hazel saw herself and the people around her. 

I’m looking forward to reading ‘The Taken‘ (2009), the second book in the series, and finding out what Hazel does next.