The Border Guards belongs to an all-Canadian genre invented and polished by mystery writer Giles Blunt: the “ice noir.” Set among the Thousand Islands on the St. Lawrence, the book is about two very different men – a smooth FBI agent and a troubled young restaurateur – who fall foul of a shadowy cartel of diamond traffickers. First-time novelist Sinnett delivers all the satisfactions of the traditional page-turner – dramatic locations, an aura of corruption, ruthless kingpins, lovers on the run – even as the novel adds up to something more than the sum of its parts. At the very least, Sinnett’s rewarding, atmospheric debut has a stark way with a phrase: “He threw back the covers and lay there naked, blinking, like a monstrous worm dug from the dirt.”

The plot unfolds like this: Agent John Selby – sometime cynic, effective liar, disappointed lover – is newly assigned to the Canada-U.S. border, where his FBI handlers are concerned about loopholes in security. Selby investigates a recent death in Kingston and finds a grieving son arranging the funeral of his father. At the funeral are many of the book’s key players, including a woman artist with a past and a too-rich, too-slippery Russian entrepreneur. Matters are complicated by a cache of uncut diamonds, and the elusive ethics of various governments. The action builds to a snowy, bloody climax in the maze of islands in the Seaway, on Christmas Day.

Notwithstanding the book’s descriptive grip and inventive set-up, it has to be said that The Border Guards fails to reach the heights it sets for itself. The momentum sags in the novel’s talky, patchy middle portion, and Tim Hollins, the callow restaurateur, seems too passive in places. But the villainy is persuasive, and some of the carnage absolutely spectacular (especially an explosion involving two buffaloes).

Sinnett shares with Blunt a cinematic eye for location, and has a particular affinity for the chilled forests of the Canadian Shield. Above all, both authors propose that high-level, sophisticated crimes – felonies with global reach – can and do happen outside urban centres, and that international bad guys often go to ground in innocuous rural hamlets. Once out in the Canadian backwoods, however, interlopers are shown to be the ill-prepared tourists they are, and quite literally fall through the ice.