Canadian Aubert's third Ellis Portal mystery (Free Reign; The Feast of Stephen) is a well-written, if pedestrian, descent into the world of homeless young women. A professional criminologist, the author brings compassionate insight into the pathetic, often terrible, people who inhabit this underworld. These insights, alas, are the high points of the story. Middle-aged detective Ellis Portal, a former judge who fell from grace through drink and drugs, wound up homeless on the streets and re-ascended to the edge of respectability, helps his friend, Det. Sgt. Matt West, to locate a young woman, Carrie Simm. Her father, a Toronto movie producer, was murdered in front of her, in full view of hundreds of people, at a film premiere. Possibly fearing for her own life, Carrie disappeared. She has a history of running away, and West suspects she's hiding with her homeless women companions. He asks Portal to use his contacts to locate her. No surprise—Portal soon finds himself looking for a lot more than a missing girl. Too much, perhaps. Aubert introduces so many characters and concerns that Carrie almost becomes a McGuffin. Bland, whiny and self-absorbed, Portal endlessly relives his rise and fall, while his success as a detective is entirely due to incredible luck. Both he and West make some stupid errors in judgment. The worst judgment of all is the author's: her killer never could have gotten away with the method Aubert chooses. A consistently readable, often interesting, but ultimately disappointing book. (June 1)
FYI:
The Feast of Stephen won Canada's Arthur Ellis Award for best mystery novel of 1999.
