Andy Boychuk is a successful Saskatchewan politician – until one sweltering August afternoon when the party faithful gather at a picnic. All of the key people in Boychuk’s life – family, friends, enemies – are there. Boychuk steps up to the podium to make a speech, takes a sip of water, and drops dead. 

Joanne Kilbourn, in her début as Canada’s leading amateur sleuth, is soon on the case, delving into Boychuk’s history. What she finds are a Bible college that’s too good to be true, a woman with a horrifying and secret past, and a murderer who’s about to strike again.

IN A NUTSHELL
I quickly became immersed in this book, not because I wanted to solve the mystery of who the murderer was but because Joanne Kilbourne seemed so real and her involvement in solving the murder felt authentic and unforced. The novel vividly evokes the world of regional Canadian politics which Joanne is actively in. For me, the power of the story arose from seeing how solving the mystery forced the recently widowed Joanne both to reassess what she thought she knew about the politicians she worked with and to consider what choices she should make about her own future. I’m looking forward to reading more books in the series. 

‘Deadly Appearances‘ is the first book in a twenty-one book series featuring Joanne Kilbourne. a widowed mother, political analyst and university professor who finds herself occasionally involved in criminal investigations in various parts of Saskatchewan.

In this first book, Joanne Kilbourne is a well-established campaigner and speechwriter at the regional level of her local party. The story starts with the charismatic candidate she’s promoting being murdered on the hustings as Joanne watches. Without any intention to do so, Joanne becomes more and more involved in trying to find out who killed him.

This may make it sound like a typical clever-amateur-sleuth-solves-the-murder-that-baffles-the-police novel. It wasn’t. It was a much more intimate account than that. The story focuses more on Joanne, her history and her future than it does on solving the murder. In a way, the murder being solved is just a by-product of Joanne working through her guilt and reshaping her view of the world and her role in it. 

The story is told from Joanne’s point of view. From the beginning, I loved her narrative voice. It was rich and human.

The emotional impact of the killing that opens the book caught me by surprise. This wasn’t a story where the first murder is just a trigger for a fascinating murder mystery. In this story, the death of the politician had some weight. There was a strong sense of loss, of a life cut short, of people left bereft by his violent death. 

I liked that events unfolded over months rather than days. This grounded the story in reality. It also gave me an opportunity to get a solid sense of who Joanne was along the way.

The murder mystery wasn’t full of twists and shocking revelations; it was more a gradual discovery of the private life of the dead man and how he was regarded by the people who knew him best, and Joanne’s realisation of how little she had known about the man she’d been helping to elect.

This prompted her to write the man’s biography, a decision that ultimately led the killer to perceive her as a threat.

I enjoyed the gradual increase in tension. I didn’t guess the killer’s identity, but it made sense when it was revealed. 

I’m looking forward to reading more books in this series and discovering how Joanne’s life choices work out.