I raved about William Deverell’s novel, Trial of Passion, and I have been disappointed that it took me too
many months to get back to him, but my reading queue is long. I found him while
I was traveling in Canada and was doing a search for Canadian authors. It’s
intended as high praise when I find that his work compares favorably with that
of Louis Penny. Penny writes about eastern Canada, her venue typically being Three
Pines, an idyllic rural village near Montreal. Deverell writes about western
Canada, Garibaldi Island, a beautiful place which is only a short hop from
Vancouver.
This is the second book in the series of books about Arthur
Beauchamp, a now retired famous trial attorney. Beauchamp is a compelling
character who has not set foot in a courtroom for six years when he is faced
with two challenges. One of his former clients, Nick the Owl Faloon has been
accused of murder. Faloon is a crook, but his specialty is stealing jewels and
Arthur immediately doubts the possibility that this man could have committed
murder. Interesting, while Arthur won multiple cases on behalf of Faloon,
Faloon also represents one of his rare failures. Beauchamp was unable to
convince a jury otherwise, and Faloon ended up serving 10 years for a rape he
did not commit.
Deverell winds in a second and equally important story line
of Beauchamp’s new wife, Margaret Blake, a farmer on Garibaldi Island and a
rabid environmental activist, is working hard to save her island from an ugly
development plan. About the same time Beauchamp finds himself back in Vancouver
to help Faloon, his wife takes refuge in a tree to thwart the developers. Both Arthur
and Margaret are making headline news day after day, but they are also apart.
Arthur must come out of retirement to deal with both matters. Deverell weaves
in a number of subplots which add to his main stories. His character
development is excellent. Also, he weaves in humor by the use of odd characters
who at the same time are quite believable.
I’m impressed with Deverell and look forward to reading
more.
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