The many local fans of Edmonton author Janice MacDonald and her “reluctant detective” Randy Craig are in for a treat this weekend.
The mystery writer is scheduled for an After Hours event at the St. Albert Public Library to bring her readers up to speed on Craig’s latest – and last – adventure on the page. That’s right, MacDonald says. Craig has finally met her match.
She gets married to her boyfriend Steve.
“They decide they’re going to have a honeymoon in Puerto Vallarta during Reading Week because it’s the only time she can get away. She’s got a course to teach,” MacDonald said.
The Eye of the Beholder, the seventh in the series, was actually released in the fall, but organizers thought that winter would be a more befitting time to hold this event as it works more thematically as what happens in the book. The heroine and her husband are having their Mexican vacation at the same time as are many university students on spring break.
Fans of the genre know very well that sleuths on vacation often find themselves confronted with circumstances requiring their particular set of investigative skills. Someone is killed, which the author admits does put a cramp on the protagonist’s honeymoon but it does a fine job of getting the narrative ball rolling mystery-wise.
It also gave her an excellent opportunity to do some all-important first-hand research. MacDonald said she loves Puerto Vallarta and there are lots of very interesting places in which to set a fictional scene.
“The second time we were down there the idea germinated and so my, my lovely husband who really just likes to go snorkelling and adventuring and taco eating and stuff was persuaded to go on a couple of mystery walks and murder walks so that I could figure out exactly where to set things and how long it would take to get from one place to another.”
The Randy Craig series started while MacDonald was in university herself. It was her thesis project on detective fiction that ended up being published in 1994. She’s come out with a new title every few years ever since, and penned a few other works in the middle here and there, too.
There’s a bittersweet satisfaction that she feels in finally wrapping up this character so she can move on to other creations. Besides, Craig’s relationship is enough of an adventure, she says.
“I think there’s a point where the arc of a story comes to a nice conclusion. And one of the things that my studies in detective fiction has noted is that it’s not that easy to keep a mystery going once people are settling into their happily ever afters. That’s partly because the romance tends to outweigh the mystery and partly because when you're reading a mystery novel, you do want it to be exciting and filled with danger but you don’t want the best person for your world, the person that you have given the moral high ground, to be putting aside their responsibilities to somebody else and getting themselves into danger. So if she’s married, she should be paying more attention to keeping that going, rather than getting her curiosity fix.”
She hopes that her readers will see it as more of a swan song to a beloved detective more along the lines of the last Dorothy Sayers’ novel, A Romance with Shades of Mystery rather than when Sir Arthur Conan Doyle killed off Sherlock Holmes. She has heard from fans who are upset about this being the final chapter.
At the very least, she’ll have one friend along with her. MacDonald’s event is hosted by Edmonton poet Alice Major, who she knows very well.
“We go back a good long way. I'm delighted that it’s her. We’re going to talk about this book. We’re going to talk about mystery novels. We’re going to talk about all the books I’ve written. It’s going to be sort of Janice MacDonald, this is your life. I think.”
After Hours with Janice MacDonald runs from 7 to 9 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 19, in Forsyth Hall at the library. Books will be available for purchase and signing at this event. Attendance is free but pre-registration is encouraged. Call 780-459-1530 or visit www.sapl.ca to save your spot.
