BLOOD AND BELONGING

A romantic getaway almost ruins a policeman’s marriage.

Sgt. Ray Robertson of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police travels the world visiting countries that need help with their policing. Although Ray, coming off an assignment in Haiti, would’ve preferred a holiday at home in Canada, his wife, Jenny, wanted someplace warm, so they’re having what’s supposed to be a romantic holiday in the Turks and Caicos Islands. All is well until Ray takes an early morning run on the beach and finds a body. At first it looks like a drowning, and the police are ready to write the victim off as one more unfortunate who’d fled Haiti on a rickety boat and died before reaching his destination. Ray, however, not only notices a slit caused by a knife wound, but recognizes the man, Robert Savin, as a Haitian police officer. Once he realizes that the death is no accident, he inevitably drifts toward closer involvement in the case, much to the distaste of Jenny, who’s already upset that his job keeps him away most of the year. As he helps the local police investigate, they realize the death is tied to the illegal and abhorrent business of charging people desperate to leave their dangerous countries large amounts of money and abandoning them or selling them into slavery. Ray’s ingrained sense of responsibility won’t let him quit even if he has to choose between his job and his marriage.

This third installment from Delany (We Wish You A Murderous Christmas, 2016, etc.) relies less on mystery than on moral outrage at the nasty business of human smuggling.