Blackfly Season

By Giles Blunt

Book 3 in the John Cardinal series

It’s spring in Algonquin Bay, and the blackflies are driving people a little mad. Detectives John Cardinal and Lise Delorme have a strange case on their hands: a young woman has wandered bug-bitten out of the Algonquin Bay bush with a gunshot wound to the head. Cardinal becomes obsessed with finding out who the woman is and who is trying to kill her. When the body of a local biker, Wombat Guthrie, is found in a cave, it seems the two cases are related—and the link appears to be a drug dealer and self-proclaimed shaman who calls himself Red Bear.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Jan 29, 2010
• ISBN: 9780307375339

Giles Blunt

Giles Blunt grew up in North Bay Ontario, and now lives in Toronto. He has written scripts for Law & Order, Street Legal, and Night Heat. His first psychological thriller, Forty Words for Sorrow, which also features Detectives Cardinal and Delorme, won the 2001 Crime Writers' Association Silver Dagger Award

Reviews for Blackfly Season

[gypsysmom_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book was recently made into a TV miniseries called Cardinal which just concluded on CTV. I decided to read the book in stages after each program was aired so that the plot would not be revealed until after I saw the TV version. As usual, I thought the written version was much better but the TV show is cinematically great. Detective John Cardinal works for the Algonquin Bay Police Force. He and his partner, Lise Delorme, are called into the hospital when a red-haired young woman is brought in with a gunshot wound in her head. Due to brain damage caused by the bullet she cannot remember who she is or who shot her. She has no identification and there are no missing persons reports which match her description. As Cardinal and Delorme work on her case a mutilated dead body turns up. The victim was a member of a local biker gang who have a reputation for controlling the drug trade in the area. It seems that an outsider is infiltrating the drug trade and the biker was killed to obtain the gang's stash. But his hands, feet and head were removed and the cave where he was found was covered in strange hieroglyphics. The gunshot victim might be another casualty of the same interloper and Cardinal and Delorme are hoping that as she regains her memory she will tell them where to find him. There are some substantial differences between the book and the TV show and I don't think that all the changes were necessary. If you have watched the TV show, do yourself a favour and read this book.

[crazeedi73 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Pretty gory 8n a couple spots, but good story line

[sjh4255 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Exciting crime thriller set in a Northern Ontario town with the main character, John Cardinal trying to solve a mysterious woman with amnesia showing up in a bar one night. The book series actually is the basis of the tv show “Cardinal” found on CTV in Canada. Great book, I will have to go back and start at book 1 at some point.

[hanneri_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A beautiful redheaded girl shows up in a Tavern in Algonquin Bay acting rather strangely and covered with black fly bites and leaves. She has no memory of who she is or what happened, but they discover she has a bullet in her brain. The bullet is removed, but homicide detectives John Cardinal and Lisa Delorme assume she is in danger, and try to protect her. She suddenly regains the memory of who she is, but still doesn't remember the shooting. She also doesn't give full information to the police such as she was visiting her brother, a drug addict because she doesn't want to get in in trouble. However, two murders are discovered and she keeps going out. Then she disappears. The plot is mixed up with drug trafficers, a motorcycle gang, and a central American shaman.

[deltaqueen50 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is the third book in his police procedural series, and Giles Blunt has offered up a page-turning thriller that involves drugs, murder, biker gangs and a witness with amnesia caused by being shot in the head. Cardinal and Delorme are working on this difficult case and at the same time battling the multitudes of black flies that make being outdoors in Northern Ontario a misery in the month of May.I enjoy the Canadian setting of these books, as the fictional town of Algonquin Bay substitutes for North Bay, Ontario, and I find the characters are mostly well developed and interesting to read about. He has captured the feel of a smaller, northern town and the historical details about the military bases not having the same importance as in the days of the Cold War certainly rang true. I would however, like to see both the main characters developed a little more, especially Lise Delorme. She was very much present in the story, but had no character growth to speak of. The author does seem to have a great deal of knowledge regarding police procedures and the cooperation that is required from city, provincial and RCMP forces.I fully intend to read on into this series and I am looking forward to seeing where Blunt takes Cardinal and Delorme next.

[auntieknickers · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is the third in a series of police procedurals set in the fictional Algonquin Bay, Ontario (which has many things in common with the real city of North Bay). Local police officers John Cardinal and Lise Delorme are presented with a young woman who doesn't know who she is or where she is; upon examination she has a bullet wound to the head. Then, a hiker stumbles on a dismembered body. And all this is taking place during black fly season, which makes everyone irritable. There are the usual jurisdictional issues with the Provincial Police and the Mounties, and some scenes that are truly horrifying; plus, Cardinal's wife's bipolar illness flares up again. I'm fond of police procedurals in any case, and this series is excellent, very Canadian (most people are fundamentally decent, except for a few who aren't at all). Setting, characters and plot are all very good.

[hardlyhardy · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It has been awhile since I have read a book I couldn't put down -- or at least hated to put down, even for a minute. "Black Fly Season" by Canadian writer Giles Blunt is such a book.The opening chapter is a gem. It's black fly season in Algonguin Bay, a city located a couple hundred miles north of Toronto, and there's a redheaded young woman in The World Tavern who has obviously gotten more than a few bites. She moves good-naturedly from table to table, seemingly unconcerned about those bites. A law officer happens to be there, and he becomes concerned when he learns the woman has no idea who she is or where she lives. In fact, she can't remember much of anything. She is taken to a hospital, where they find two bullets in her brain. Someone had tried to kill her and left her for dead.Soon two bodies are found, one of them shot with the same gun, and police detective John Cardinal and his partner, Lise Delorme, suspect they have a serial killer on their hands.Readers learn who the killers are -- there are two of them -- long before Cardinal and Delorme do, making "Black Fly Season" less a mystery and more a suspense thriller. It involves drug traffic and a form of voodoo more common in Cuba than Canada.The book also has an interesting subplot involving Cardinal's wife, Catherine, a manic-depressive who reaches a crisis point just as her husband's murder case reaches its crisis point.Giles Blunt is a fine writer, and I think I'll be looking for some of his other novels.

[maneekuhi · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Don't know why I didn't like this.The story was about Red Bear, a pseudo native Canadian, in reality a crazed Cuban. Not my cup of tea. Ultra violent, includes a girl with a bullet in her brain. Cardinal and Lise get no where, while wifee is hospitalized for the umpteenth time.

[auntmarge64 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The third in the Cardinal/Delorme detective series set in Algonquin Bay (read "North Bay") in northern Ontario. Good suspense, with further developments in Cardinal's personal life. Another reviewer of Blunt's work mentioned a tendency for the bad guys, rather than Cardinal and Delorme, to be at the center of the narrative. I took a better look at that in this story and it's true. There's little mystery as to who the bad guys are, so the suspense is how much damage they'll be able to do before stopped. The reader is kept at a greater distance this way, and in this book, especially, Delorme is practically a cipher. Cardinal's "inner workings" are more visible, but no where near as much as the criminals. I have to say that the descriptions of the massive black fly invasion brings back a lot of memories of a vacation I took years ago at a Quebec lake, where the flies were late and I was early: pure misery. Well-done and looking forward to #4.

[chrissywest · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This is my first experience with Canadian author, Giles Blunt. Blackfly Season is the 3rd installment of the John Cardinal Series. I found the story to be alright, but quite predictable. The first 100 pages really kept my attention, but afterwards, the plot took a major nose dive, and I started to lose interest. There just wasn’t anything happening that grabbed my attention. I will give Blunt another try, and read another book from this series. Hopefully, the other books in this series, are better.

[av71 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Fascinating and revolting. As always, advances the story of Detective John Cardinal's life and marriage.

[tripleblessings_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is Blunt's 3rd police procedural set in a northern Ontario town called Algonquin Bay, which seems similar to North Bay. It won the Arthur Ellis award for best crime novel. The police detectives, John Cardinal and Lise Delorme, are convincingly human and likeable, while the crime story is intense, violent and disturbing. The tension increases as the criminals' activities escalate, from drug trafficking to murder and kidnapping, while the police gradually investigate and attempt to prevent more deaths. Recommended, if you like your crime on the 'noir' and bloodthirsty side.I want to read the others in this series.

[edwardsgt · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Another great John Cardinal novel set in North Bay Ontario.