Bones to Pick

Phoebe Fairfax, videographer for a popular daytime TV program, strikes out for Drumheller, Alberta, a former mining town and present-day dinotopia, to cover Graham Maxwell, famous fossil hunter and self-publicist. Maxwell claims to have discovered the original hominid musician in a Kenyan gorge, complete with his flute. As fate would have it, Maxwell soon shows up deader than his own fossils, with said flute rammed down his throat. Fairfax, billed as Canada's most reluctant sleuth, finds herself sucked into an academic snakepit complete with a spurned graduate assistant, a bunch of rabid creationists calling themselves Geologists for Jesus, and eccentric professors cavorting naked in the bushes: "For God's sake Phoebe," he shouted, "there's some old wienie-wagger prancing around your pasture stark naked." "Oh, you must have seen Professor Woodward," I said as the dawn finally broke. "He's out there working on a research project." While all this supplies the ingredients of a comedic romp with mysterious overtones, it may be going too far to describe it as a detective novel. Phoebe is not just reluctant--she is totally passive, forever mooning around her country retreat with the dog while the answers to our questions literally just pop up in front of her. It's hard to know if author Suzanne North really doesn't quite understand the genre or is sending it up. If the latter is the case, surely it should be a little more obvious? However, the success of this series (Healthy, Wealthy and Dead, Seeing Is Deceiving) and its main character suggests that this non-detective may signal a trend. --Robyn Gillam

Author: Suzanne North

Publisher: McClelland & Stewart

Year: 2002