Prisoners of Hope

August 15, 2018
Aid worker Amanda Doucette continues a trek across Canada (The Trickster's Lullaby, 2017, etc.) that's supposed to be therapeutic but turns into a crime-riddled exploration of the area around Ontario's magnificent Georgian Bay.Before she can launch the Georgian Getaway, the third in the Fun for Families events she's organizing in the hope of doing better herself by doing something good for abused local families, Amanda needs to scope out the area with the help of veteran local guide George Gifford, whom she's engaged to take her and Kaylee, her faithful dog, on a preliminary kayak tour. Her first hint that something's gone wrong is the appearance of Ronny Gifford in place of his ailing father. Her second is their discovery of a young woman whose boat has sunk near a remote island. Her third is Ronny's abrupt departure with the woman they've just rescued, leaving Amanda and Kaylee stranded on the island themselves. Their rescue ends the strongest and most characteristic part of the story and prepares for its central mystery: the question of how neurologist Benson Humphries, whom Amanda met briefly while she was waiting in vain for George Gifford, met his death and who might have helped him meet it. Ben Humphries was a complicated man who married into an even more complicated family. His wife, Janine, and her sister, Candace, are daughters and heirs of the late Duncan Saint Clair, whose wealth put Ben's own earnings to shame. The sisters, legendary wild children, seem to have no higher purpose than battling their shared Filipino nanny and their long-suffering cook, their neighbors, Janine's teenage daughter, and each other. But the gale-force recriminations have barely started when Amanda and Chris Tymko, her favorite Mountie, discover a further complication on the shore of a magical inland lake: the inadequately buried body of Ronny Gifford.The busy, overstuffed mystery, fueled by drugs, illegal immigration, and endless domestic feuding, never comes close to equaling the elemental power of the resilient heroine's opening adventure.

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October 29, 2018
In Fradkin’s taut third Amanda Doucette mystery (after 2017’s The Trickster’s Lullaby), former overseas medical worker Amanda, who’s engaged in a cross-Canada charity tour, embarks on a kayaking trip in Ontario’s Georgian Bay to benefit a group of abused women and their children. Out on the bay, she and Ronny Gifford, a local guide, rescue a young woman whose boat has capsized and who says her name is Sophia. Ronny takes Sophia to the mainland, leaving Amanda stranded on an island. Amanda is rescued by the grieving Candy, whose father, Toronto neurologist Henry Benson Humphries, died under mysterious circumstances the day before at the estate of his party-loving, foul-mouthed wife, Janine Saint Clair. Amanda learns that Sophia is actually Danielle Torres, Janine’s overworked Filipino nanny, and she’s the chief suspect in Henry’s death. When Amanda later finds Ronny’s body in a remote rural area, suspicion again falls on Danielle. RCMP Corporal Chris Tymko, Amanda’s love interest, and Matthew Goderich, who runs Amanda’s Fun for Families charity, assist Amanda in tracking down the killer. Fradkin combines a white-knuckle mystery with a look at the serious social problem of foreign worker exploitation.

September 15, 2018
Amanda Doucette, the amateur sleuth introduced in Fire in the Stars (2016), returns in the third installment of the series. While Amanda is checking out some small deserted islands in Georgian Bay, off the coast of Ontario, she and her guide, a local man, rescue a woman whose boat has capsized. But then something curious happens: the guide and the rescued woman head for the mainland, after dropping?marooning??Amanda on a small island. She works her way out of that predicament, only to find an even greater problem confronting her: the apparent murder of the tour guide who'd stranded Amanda on the island. The author, a retired psychologist, does a fine job of building her characters; unlike some amateur-sleuth mysteries, whose protagonists seem either too clever or too cute by half, Fradkin populates her series with real people whose lives encompass more than solving the odd crime. Keep 'em coming.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)