KNIGHT BLIND

In this mystery, a struggling private investigator agrees to help an elderly woman find her estranged nephew and runs into identity theft, dysfunctional rental cars, and murder.

Canadian private investigator Jorja Knight is down on her luck. Work’s thin on the ground and the rent’s due, so when the chance to track down a wealthy client’s relative comes up, she grabs it. Zosia Gorwitz last saw her nephew Stanislav Gorwitz in Poland in 1939, just before she and her mother fled the Axis alliance. Zosia’s grandfather and father were sent to Auschwitz, and her brother died in battle. After visiting the Canadian Holocaust Memorial and seeing the name Stanislav Gorwitz in the registry, though, Zosia became convinced that her nephew immigrated to Vancouver. It’s a long shot, but she wants Jorja to find him and reunite them. Stan, it turns out, died in a shooting, but he had a son, Johnnie, who may still be alive. Jorja traces a man who seems to have the right name and credentials, but it soon becomes clear that he’s not the person she’s looking for. Where is Johnnie, and why is someone else using his identity—and is it related to the reason that Calgary’s vagrants seem to keep disappearing? Along the way, an incident involving an overturned watermelon truck leaves Jorja needing a cheap rental car. This first in a planned mystery series offers a very promising introduction to a likable PI of the traditional world-weary, hand-to-mouth type. Although readers won’t find anything particularly radical here, the novel succeeds through its warmth, its generic familiarity, and its humor. For example, Jorja visits JumpIn Jalopies to get a rental car, where she receives a succession of wrecks whose “special” features include front doors that won’t open, alarms that go off at random times, and a particularly unpleasant smell that threatens to land her in trouble with the police. The mystery itself is tight and well plotted with enough twists and curveballs to keep most crime fans on their toes.

A fine debut by a talented writer, featuring a well-crafted new PI.