Forty Words for Sorrow

The novel Forty Words for Sorrow, written by Giles Blunt, is an engaging crime novel set in northern Ontario. The story opens with the discovery of the body of 13-year old Katie Pine frozen in a block of ice on the desolate island of Windago outside Algonquin Bay. The disappearance of a teenage boy, the discovery of yet another dead teenager, and the disappearance of a fourth follow the discovery of the body. What begins as a detailed police procedural involving forensics, footwork and follow-up slowly turns into a classic serial killer story.

John Cardinal, the cop who months earlier had been involved in the investigation of Katie Pine's disappearance, is assigned to the homicide investigation, along with a new female partner, Lise Delorme. Delorme is a high-profile member of the Special Investigations unit, where she exposes the misdeeds of the mayor and local school board. The relationship between Cardinal and Delorme grows slowly, naturally and realistically from wariness, distrust and suspicion to respect, and teamwork.

Forty Words for Sorrow, written by Giles Blunt, is set in Algonquin Bay, an icy, frigid Canadian town near Toronto. The setting, with its biting wind and vast expanses of frozen terrain, strongly and evocatively described, is as much a part of the story as the primary characters. His writing is extremely descriptive and gives the reader a mental image of what he is writing about. Superbly paced, with life-like characters and convincing police detail, Forty Words for Sorrow is also a novel that kept me wanting to read more.

One quote that I thought stood out in the novel, is the origin of the title.

“The Inuit, it is said, have forty different words for snow. Never mind about snow, Cardinal mused, what people really need is forty words for sorrow.”

This is a good example of how Blunt is quite imaginative, and is quite unique in his writing.