Butterfly Kills: A Stonechild and Rouleau Mystery

Written by Brenda Chapman

Narrated by Michelle St. John

Two separate crimes, two tragic outcomes...

Jacques Rouleau has moved to Kingston to look after his father and take up the position of head of the town's Criminal Investigations Division. One hot week in late September, university student Leah Sampson is murdered in her apartment. In another corner of the city, Della Munroe is raped by her husband. At first the crimes appear unrelated, but as Sergeant Rouleau and his new team of officers dig into the women's pasts, they discover unsettling coincidences.

When Kala Stonechild, one of Rouleau's former officers from Ottawa, suddenly appears in Kingston, Rouleau enlists her to help. Stonechild isn't sure if she wants to stay in Kingston, but agrees to help Rouleau in the short term. While she struggles with trying to decide if she can make a life in this new town, a ghost from her past starts to haunt her.

As the detectives delve deeper into the cases, it seems more questions pop up than answers. Who murdered Leah Sampson? And why does Della Monroe's name keep showing up in the murder investigation? Both women were hiding secrets that have unleashed a string of violence. Stonechild and Rouleau race to discover the truth before the violence rips more families apart.

• Language: English
• Publisher: ECW
• Release date: Nov 25, 2017
• ISBN: 9781459742222

Brenda Chapman

Brenda Chapman is a crime writer who has published over twenty books, including seven in the lauded Stonechild and Rouleau mystery series. She lives in Ottawa.

Reviews for Butterfly Kills

[lamour_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Detective Rouleau has transferred from the Ottawa Police Service to a a similar position in Kingston, Ontario in order to support his ill father who teaches at Queens University. Kala Stonechild appears in Kingston and is recruited by Rouleau to help solved two crimes where Della Monroe is raped by her husband on the same day as university student Leah Simpson is murdered. While is seems a stretch, the cases seem to be connected but somehow.how?When Della kills her husband because he was trying to take their son and another university student is viciously attacked, the detectives feel there are connections even though there does not to appear to be any evidence for it. This is fast paced plot that anyone who knows Kingston would especially appreciate because of all the references to familiar buildings and street names.

[amkitty-511462 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Audiobook. Interesting story, but the author needs an editor with a better grasp of the language. If I had to hear one more time about someone’s eyes performing an action, I was going to lose it. That kind of descriptive is either lazy or careless. As a reader, I found it jarring and distracting to the point that I lost the story’s thread numerous times.

[vesper1931 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Jacques Rouleau is now head of Kingston's Criminal Investigations Division. His team is called out to investigate the death of student Leah Sampson. While elsewhere in the area Della Munroe insists that her husband has raped her.
Enjoyed these interesting mysteries with their complex characters. I look forward to reading the next in the series.

[baochuan-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is the second book of the series and the characters are better described with more depth. The story line is more expansive. Even though I know that all the characters will tie together at the end, the story did not come clear until the very end.

[darcia_10 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Butterfly Kills is a complex story with multiple plot lines and themes running throughout. While I respect the author's ambition here, I felt a lack of focus that made it difficult for me to stay emotionally connected.The main character here seems to be Kala Stonechild, who we follow along as she investigates multiple cases. She is aloof and difficult to know. I was lost during some of the references to her past and her life situation. This might be due to the fact that I did not read the first book in this series, or it might be intentional to keep her character mysterious. Either way, this was a challenge because if I can't connect to the main character, I can't really connect to the story. We have a lot of point of view characters, some with small parts and some who are important characters. Through much of the book, everyone's parts feel insulated, separate from each other, and all these disconnected POV characters made the book feel too scattered for me. For instance, a young girl called Dalal makes an appearance early in the book and continues to pop in and out every so often as we go along. These sections are distinctly separate from everything else going on, to the point that I felt I was reading an entirely different book. In and of themselves, each of these plots and subplots are powerful, but combined they become watered-down and lost within themselves. No doubt the book is well-written. Brenda Chapman has a knack for capturing people in challenging situations and she does not shy away from the things that make us uncomfortable. This book raises issues of marital rape, family honor and cultural customs, trust, and jealousy. We see how easily appearances can become a cover to fool those who either don't or can't look deeper. I would have liked more focus, so that I could have made that emotional connection. Still, this book offers much to think about.** I was provided with a review copy by Dundurn Publishing via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. **