Aubrey Hamilton Reviews: Flashback by Ted Woods

Last year’s Bouchercon was in Toronto. As always after an encounter with the Canadian mystery writing community, I come away determined to identify and incorporate more Canadian authors into my reading. That is easier to say than to do, apparently. I am avoiding book purchases while downsizing the current holdings so I searched the library catalogs in the area--I have access to collections in Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia--without success. Fewer Canadian and Australian mysteries are to be found in the area libraries while English, Irish, and Scottish are well-represented. Why would be an interesting investigation. So I threw in the towel and bought a few books by Canadian authors, including a Reid Bennett title by Ted Wood. Bennett features in 10 procedurals released between 1983 and 1995 as the only law enforcement agent in fictional Murphy’s Harbor, a small resort town in Ontario. His sidekick Sam the German shepherd fills in for the missing support staff, sniffing out drugs and taking down bad guys as needed.

In Flashback (Scribner, 1992) Bennett’s attention is divided between his job and the impending arrival of his first child. In a surprisingly complicated plot, teen gangs target local shops for whirlwind destruction, a submerged car is found in the nearby lake with a body inside, and a felon who vowed vengeance on Bennett years earlier escapes prison. The identity of the drowned woman seems clear at first but locating her husband to confirm it proves to be difficult. The name of a well-known Toronto film producer who has a week-end cottage in town crops up often enough to indicate involvement in this unprecedented crime wave but the nature of that involvement is ambiguous. Bennett runs back and forth between the hospital where his wife is undergoing a lengthy labor and his town where crime scenes and suspects continue to shift. An understated theme that runs throughout is the town’s relationship to the Native Americans on the nearby reservation.

Ted Wood’s first-hand knowledge of life as a Toronto police officer comes through clearly in these early police procedurals. The first book in the series Dead in the Water was shortlisted for the 1984 New Blood Dagger Award and the 1984 Arthur Ellis Award for Best Novel. Wood was president of Crime Writers of Canada in 1987 and in 1999 he was given the association’s Derrick Murdoch award, which recognizes extraordinary achievement in Canadian crime writing. He also wrote, under the name Jack Barnao, three books featuring John Locke, an ex-SAS operative who is now a bodyguard to the rich and famous.

Wood’s books in both series occasionally crop up in the Kindle deals of the day lists that circulate widely. In any form they are well worth the committed mystery reader’s attention.

·         Hardcover: 224 pages

·         Publisher: Scribner; 1st American ed edition (August 1, 1992)

·         Language: English

·         ISBN-10: 0684194147

·         ISBN-13: 978-0684194141

Aubrey Hamilton ©2018

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal IT projects by day and reads mysteries at night.