March 11, 2024
Bury the Lead, by Kate Hilton and Elizabeth Renzetti
“There’s nothing to worry about, Glenda. It’s just routine. There’s no way the cops will think a butter tart feud is enough motive to kill someone. This isn’t Midsomer Murders.”
I first read BURY THE LEAD back in January in preparation for Bookspo Podcast (the episode went live last week!) and returned to it again this weekend as I’ll be interviewing co-authors Kate Hilton and Elizabeth Renzetti (who are friends of mine) as part of House of Anansi Press’s Beer and Book Club at Henderson Brewing this Wednesday March 13. And it’s something to read a mystery novel a second time, when you already know whodunnit, and can pay attention to how the machine is working, all the moving parts. For some books, that might take all the fun out of the experience, but not this one, which I liked even more the second time around. I loved the humour, the similes (the old newspaper that “looked like it had been typeset with a machete”), the fact that it’s concerned with newspapers at all (veteran journalist Renzetti brings her years of experience at the Globe & Mail, and a passion for locals news and journalists in general), the fierce feminism, the small-town Canadian cottage-country setting. It’s the story of Cat Conway, who’s turned up in Port Ellis (where she’d spent summers with her grandparents years before) on the burnt out trail of a marriage and a career both gone out in flames. Very soon, however, it seems that her new, smaller, quiet life is not going to be so quiet after all when the lead in local theatre production (who is a world-famous actor) turns up dead on opening night, and not of natural causes. Ever the reporter, Cat is determined to get to the bottom of the story, along with her posse of news colleagues, a motley bunch if ever there was one, except that it seems like somebody in town is intent on getting between Cat and the truth. But is there anyone more indomitable than a middle-aged woman fuelled by rage who has nothing left to lose? Bury the Lead is pure delight.
