Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published May 2008
384 pages
Genre: Mysteries
Publication Information
This brilliant debut mystery has it all: characters so realistic they rise off the page; a devious plot that delivers both psychological depth and emotional heights; exceptionally fine, deft writing; a stunning cross-Canada manhunt; a detective like no other; and the promise of more mysteries in the series.
The first homicide that Detective Inspector Hazel Micallef, acting chief of the Port Dundas police, has had to investigate in almost three years is that of cancer patient Delia Chandler, a woman who once had an affair with Hazel’s father. When a few days later, and three hundred kilometres away, the mutilated body of an MS sufferer is found, painted in Chandler’s blood, Micallef realizes that someone is killing the terminally ill, and not for mercy’s sake. Hobbled by a bad back and a skeptical police bureaucracy, Inspector Micallef takes it upon herself to coordinate a nationwide manhunt for the killer; a man, she soon learns, who can save a life as dramatically as he can end one — a man with God on his mind, grief in his heart, and a desperate need to kill.
"Starred Review. [A]n excellent literary thriller, both riveting and precise. The ending is a shocker. Recommended." - Library Journal.
"Billed as "a prominent North American literary novelist," Wolfe convincingly lays claim to a new mantle as a first-rate crime writer." - Publishers Weekly.
This information about The Calling was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
The publishing world is a abuzz (relatively speaking) with gossip about who the pseudonymous Inger Wolfe might be. The pre-publicity hype states that it is the pseudonym for a prominent North American literary novelist. Early guesses were that it was Jane Urquhart, but now opinion appears to have shifted to it being Michael Redhill. Somewhat embarrassingly however, it appears that there is already a published author named Inger Wolf (albeit without an 'e'), a Danish writer with two crime novels to her name.
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