I Was Hitler’s Cat

Any book that plays Hitler for laughs has its work cut out for it. First, there are the jokes themselves, which must succeed on every page, given the very small market for Nazi comedy. Second, ... Read More »

April 20, 2004 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Memory Lane: A Willows and Parker Mystery

By Laurence Gough

Series mystery writers always have to compete with themselves while trying to keep the faith with readers who just want variations on the same old theme. Laurence Gough typically responds on two tracks, first by ... Read More »

April 20, 2004 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Gaffer: A Novel of Newfoundland

By Kevin Major

Shorn of his duties to the teen set, Kevin Major, a Newfoundland writer best known for his YA fiction, neglects the elements that typically make a novel work: clarity, story, character. Instead, he indulges style ... Read More »

April 20, 2004 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Southern Gulf Islands of B.C.

By David and Andrea Spalding & Lawrence Pitt and Georgina Montgomery

It’s difficult to talk about beauty without simplifying or over-romanticizing. There can be beauty in ugliness, a certain sad, ironic beauty of human endeavour represented, say, by a wheelless splay-forked bicycle propped up in a ... Read More »