Whodunit: who killed the competition? Answer: Peter Robinson and Giles Blunt, Canada’s most accomplished writers of crime fiction. The two of them constitute a mystery fan’s dream team: Robinson has the plot chops, while Blunt’s psychological adroitness and descriptive grip keep readers coming back for more. Robinson’s novels aren’t set in Canada, as a rule, which leaves the domestic field to Blunt.

Blunt has been particularly interesting to watch, because his ambitious previous novel, The Delicate Storm – a paranoia-laced treat with history on its mind, and the October Crisis at its core – attempted to be a political thriller as much as a mystery, and largely succeeded. Blunt has also produced a curiously durable series hero, Algonquin Bay police detective John Cardinal. Solitary, conscientious, haunted, Cardinal has to sweat the small stuff as well as the headline news: the scuffles behind Tim Hortons as well as the corpses in frozen lakes. He’s a true samurai of the north. We care about Cardinal, and we miss him when he’s not on the page: we’ll follow him anywhere.

Blackfly Season is a return to familiar territory. When a young girl stumbles out of the bush with no clue as to her identity, Cardinal’s team discovers that her memory loss is due to a bullet miraculously lodged in her head. The girl’s junkie brother shows up, and gets on the wrong side of the local biker gang. Bodies start to proliferate, with neatly removed heads and hands. These gory developments point to a new perp in town, an alleged Cherokee named Red Bear.
Red Bear is a combination of Superfly, Hannibal Lecter, and Don Juan Castenada. He’s a shaman and a showman, with a penchant for drug dealing, dismemberment, bloody midnight ceremonies, and silky, evil speeches. Before he and Cardinal face off in their final confrontation, a few more people will end up whacked or, worse, in the woods.

Blackfly Season is a superior thriller. Blunt’s sense of place is unsurpassed, and the scenes and events have an icy clarity that is the hallmark of his style. But the novel is marred by two clichés: the character with amnesia and the character who has too much character. Red Bear is so malignant that he almost becomes a parody of dastardliness, like a high-cheekboned villain from an Austin Powers film. The girl with no memory is a problem as well: characters who wander around acting like blank slates almost never work. For the reader, it’s a drag waiting for them to recover. Especially since Blunt fans have another wait ahead – a too-long interval until the author comes up with his next, undoubtedly better, northern knockout.