Black Fly Season

Silver Dagger-winner Blunt spins a highly disturbing but truly memorable tale about a Canadian cult's murder spree. After homicide detective John Cardinal is called in to talk to a young woman who wandered into an Algonquin Bay bar sans ID, keys or memory, doctors examining her find a bullet in her brain. Figuring whoever tried to kill her may want to finish the job, Cardinal puts the woman, dubbed ""Red"" for her coppery hair, into seclusion. Backed by partner Lise Delorme, Cardinal begins assembling what pieces of information he's been able to gather, and the investigation quickly takes the team from the mundane (drugs, bikers) to the grisly (a string of dismemberment killings apparently committed by a Cuban cult known as Palo Mayombe). The action will glue readers to the page, but the plot is equally moving in its quieter, more poignant moments when Cardinal, whose wife suffers from bouts of severe depression, must take time to handle family matters. Based on a true crime, the pulsing, tightly plotted narrative again shows why Blunt (Forty Words for Sorrow ) should be considered among the new practitioners of crime drama's elite. Agent, Helen Heller. (June)