Mel Bradshaw received excellent reviews for his first novel, Death in the Age of Steam, which was set in Toronto a decade before Confederation. He delves into the past once more in his new novel, Quarrel with the Foe. The setting is again Toronto, this time in the 1920s, and the protagonist is Paul Shenstone, a detective with the Toronto police.

While both of Bradshaw’s books evoke the past in wonderful detail, his latest is a more straightforward detective story. Shenstone investigates the murder of industrialist Digby Watt, shot three times late at night outside his office. He soon realizes he may have insider’s knowledge of the motive for this crime. Eleven years earlier, Shenstone’s boyhood pal Horny Ingersoll was killed in Germany when his field gun exploded. The shell casing was defective, riddled with holes that had been painted over to pass inspection. Ingersoll’s fellow soldiers at the battery that day, including Shenstone, all agree that whoever manufactured that shell deserves a fate similar to Ingersoll’s. It is later revealed that the shell was manufactured by one of Digby Watt’s companies.

Adding intrigue to coincidence, newspaperman Ivan MacAllister, a member of Horny Ingersoll’s old regiment, is first on the scene of the murder 11 years later. And the final surviving member of the battery crew, Robert Taylor, turns out to have recently corresponded with Digby Watt, condemning him for the death of Ingersoll. Shenstone also has to consider Watt’s oppressed son, a younger woman who was spending time with Digby Watt, an ex-con chauffeur, and a lady of the night as he looks for motive and the murderer.

This effort doesn’t offer the intricate detail found in Bradshaw’s first novel – given that it’s almost 200 pages shorter, that’s not surprising. But Quarrel with the Foe compensates with its quicker pace and tighter focus. Paul Shenstone is a likeable character, a regular guy who likes his liquor but also takes his detective work seriously. Bradshaw has a winner here, and potential for a series.