The Last Good Day: A Joanne Kilbourn Mystery - Softcover

Bowen, Gail

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0771013493 ISBN 13: 9780771013492

Publisher: McClelland & Stewart Inc., 2011

Synopsis

The ninth novel of Gail Bowen's popular series finds Canada's favourite amateur sleuth, Joanne Kilbourn, on holiday at a cottage borrowed from a lawyer friend, one of a cluster of summer homes owned by lawyers from the same prestigious firm. When one of them kills himself the night after a long talk with Joanne, she is pushed into investigating just what her neighbours are involved with, an investigation that has startling - and fatal - consequences.

Bowen's depiction of this community of lawyers, each in his or her way now divorced from the ideals of justice and mercy that once motivated them all, is both compassionate and hard-nosed. There is Zack, the charming but controlling paraplegic; Blake and Lily, whose daughter, Gracie, struggles to keep her dignity as her parents' marriage falls apart; Noah, who would rather practise carpentry than the law, and his wife, Delia, who is consumed by worry about the firm. The mounting stress among these lawyers is palpable as Joanne delves into their lives. And Joanne faces her own personal anxieties too when she discovers that her former lover, Inspector Alex Kequahtooway, is mixed up in what seems to be some very sordid legal business.

About this title

Review

"This is a classic whodunit, in which everything from setting to plot to character works beautifully. . . . The Last Good Day is a treat from first page to final paragraph."
--Globe and Mail

"Compulsively readable."
-- Hamilton Spectator

"[A] measured but suspenseful look into the vagaries of human emotions."
-- Windsor Star

About the Author

GAIL BOWEN's Joanne Kilbourn mysteries have made her one of Canada's most popular crime-fiction writers. The first book in the series, Deadly Appearances (1990), was nominated for the W.H. SmithBooks in Canada Award for best first novel. It was followed by Murder at the Mendel (1991), The Wandering Soul Murders (1992), A Colder Kind of Death (which won the Arthur Ellis Award for best crime novel of 1995), A Killing Spring (1996), Verdict in Blood (1998), Burying Ariel (2000), The Glass Coffin (2002), The Last Good Day (2004), and The Endless Knot (2006). Bowen has also written five plays that have been produced across Canada, and one, The World According to Charlie D, for CBC Radio. Now retired from teaching at the First Nations University, Bowen lives in Regina.

About this edition

• Publisher: McClelland & Stewart Inc.
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0771013493
• ISBN 13: 9780771013492
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256