By the Time You Read This

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More About This Book

Overview

In Algonquin Bay, Detective John Cardinal suffers a devastating loss. He arrives at a grisly crime scene only to discover that the victim is his own wife, who left a suicide note at the scene. But when Cardinal begins to receive a series of threatening letters, he suspects that his wife may not have taken her own life—and that there may be more to her suicide note than meets the eye.

While Cardinal takes time to grieve, his partner, Sargeant Lise Delorme, is investigating a high-profile sex crime involving a young girl whose abuse is being broadcast online—and who appears to be a resident of Algonquin Bay. Things are heating up in this quiet, costal town as both Delorme and Cardinal find themselves tracking predators so diabolical that the accepted bounds of criminal justice no longer apply….

Editorial Reviews

From Barnes & Noble
The Barnes & Noble Review
This Giles Blunt crime fiction thriller starring Canadian detective John Cardinal (Black Fly Season, The Delicate Storm, et al.) is an intensely heartrending tale of sorrow and loss that revolves around two very different cases: one involving the suicide of Cardinal's wife, Catherine, who had battled manic-depression for years; and the other dealing with a pedophile who, after apparently posting hundreds of sexually explicit photos on the Internet, has been traced to northern Ontario.

Cardinal is still reeling from the sudden death of his wife, who jumped from a high-rise building and left behind a hand-written note beginning, "Dear John, By the time you read this…" -- after decades spent in and out of psychiatric hospitals, Catherine finally seemed to be taking strides toward wellness. But while Cardinal should be home grieving, the appearance of sadistically taunting sympathy cards in the mail propels him to further investigate his wife's death -- even if it puts his job in jeopardy. Meanwhile, Cardinal's partner, Lise Delorme, is given a "real stomach-turner" of a case involving pictures of the vile sexual abuse of a child -- pictures that seem to identify the detectives' jurisdiction, Algonquin Bay, as one of the assault locations. As Cardinal and Delorme unravel equally disturbing mysteries, they come to a horrific realization: The cases are somehow linked.

Comparable to Steve Hamilton's Alex McKnight novels (A Stolen Season et al.), By the Time You Read This is a darkly atmospheric page-turner that will be next to impossible to put down. Paul Goat Allen
Publishers Weekly
Set in remote Algonquin Bay, Ontario, Blunt's compelling fourth crime novel to feature John Cardinal (after Blackfly Season) finds the police detective mourning the death of his wife, an apparent suicide. Then Cardinal starts receiving cold, hate-filled notes gloating over his loss. Stirred and angered into believing that his wife may have been murdered, he sets about looking into who might be refusing to let the dead-or, more particularly, himself-rest easy. Meanwhile, his partner, Lise Delorme, is busy trying to track down the pedophile responsible for a cache of appalling photos featuring a small girl who may live in or near Algonquin Bay. An unexpected yet utterly realistic twist lifts this novel into extremely interesting (and entertaining) territory. Sharp dialogue, complex characters and a satisfying conclusion should help Blunt, who has won Britain's Silver Dagger and Canada's Arthur Ellis Award, win new readers in the U.S. Author tour. (Feb.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
More Reviews (2) Fewer Reviews
Library Journal

In Silver Dagger Award winner Blunt's latest, Det. John Cardinal (Blackfly Season) is back, and this time it's personal. His wife, Catherine, who for several years has been hospitalized on and off for depression, has seemingly leapt off a roof to her death, leaving a note behind. The coroner and police department rule it a suicide, and her psychiatrist, Dr. Frederick Bell, concurs. Cardinal has some doubts when disturbing notes arrive at his home, but he quickly realizes he is the only one with these doubts. Fellow police officer Lise Delorme feels bad for her friend, but she is tied up trying to track down a local pedophile who has plastered pictures of a young girl all over the Internet. More suicides among Dr. Bell's patients in this small Ontario town further convince Cardinal that something is amiss, and, contrary to departmental policy, he continues to investigate on his own while assisting Delorme with her investigation. Ostensibly a police procedural, this beautifully written and unusual story is really more of a suspenseful, psychological study of evil. Strongly recommended for all public libraries. [See Prepub Alert, LJ10/15/06.]
—Stacy Alesi Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information

Kirkus Reviews
Canadian detective John Cardinal (Black Fly Season, 2005, etc.) won't have to worry about his depressive wife anymore: She's taken a fatal plunge from the roof of an apartment building. If ever there was an open-and-shut case of suicide, it's Catherine Cardinal's. She'd been hospitalized a dozen times for depression; her psychiatrist, Dr. Frederick Bell, acknowledges that she was "no stranger to suicidal thoughts"; she left a clear-headed note to her husband; and the rooftop where she'd gone to take pictures shows no signs of anyone's presence but her own. Even so, the more closely Cardinal looks into her death, in flagrant violation of departmental rules, the more convinced he is that Catherine didn't kill herself-or that if she did, her death is only one of a suspicious rash of suicides in little Algonquin Bay. Chief R.J. Kendall, livid at Cardinal's cowboy sleuthing, tries to pull him off the case by assigning him to Lise Delorme's search for a pedophile who's spent five years documenting in photographs his abuse of a young girl. But Delorme's investigation offers no relief, partly because it's equally grim and unsparing, partly because it turns out to have a sickening, surprising connection to Cardinal's own. Along the way, Blunt pulls off a remarkable feat: He makes a story drenched in sadness almost unbearably exciting. The result is the most beautifully written, deeply felt page-turner of the year.

Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780312945480
  • Publisher: St. Martin's Press
  • Publication date: 7/29/2008
  • Format: Mass Market Paperback
  • Edition description: Reprint
  • Pages: 352
  • Sales rank: 570,362
  • Product dimensions: 4.20 (w) x 6.70 (h) x 1.10 (d)

Meet the Author

Giles Blunt grew up in North Bay, Ontario. After spending over twenty years in New York City, he now lives in Toronto. He has written scripts for Law & Order and he is the author of four John Cardinal novels, including Forty Words for Sorrow, for which he won The British Crime Writers' Macallan Silver Dagger Award, and the most recent By the Time You Read This, which was short-listed for the Duncan Lawrie Dagger, the most prestigious crime fiction award in the world.

Read an Excerpt

Nothing bad could ever happen on Madonna Road. It curls around the western shore of a small lake just outside Algonquin Bay, Ontario, providing a pine-scented refuge for affluent families with young children, yuppies fond of canoes and kayaks, and an artful population of chipmunks chased by galumphing dogs. It’s the kind of spot–tranquil, shady and secluded – that promises an exemption from tragedy and sorrow.

Detective John Cardinal’s and his wife, Catherine, lived in the smallest house on Madonna Road, but even that tiny place would have been beyond their means were it not for the fact that, being situated across the road from the water, they owned neither an inch of beach nor so much as a millimetre of lake frontage. On weekends Cardinal spent most of his time down in the basement breathing sawdust, paint and Minwax, carpentry affording him a sense of creativity and control that did not tend to flourish in the squad room.

But even when he was not woodworking, he loved to be in his tiny house enveloped in the serenity of the lakeshore. It was autumn now, early October, the quietest time of the year. The motorboats and Sea-Doos had been hauled away, and the snowmobiles were not yet blasting their way across ice and snow.

Autumn in Algonquin Bay was the season that redeemed the other three. Colours of scarlet and rust, ochre and gold swarmed across the hills, the sky turned an alarming blue, and you could almost forget the sweat-drenched summer, the bug festival that was spring, the pitiless razor of winter. Trout Lake was preternaturally still, black onyx amid fire. Even having grown up here (when he took it completely for granted), and now having lived in Algonquin Bay again for the past dozen years, Cardinal was never quite prepared for how beautiful it was in the fall. This time of year, he liked to spend every spare minute at home. On this particular evening he had made the fifteen-minute drive from work, even though he had only an hour, affording him exactly thirty minutes at the dinner table before he had to head back.
Catherine tossed a pill into her mouth, washed it down with a few swallows of water and snapped the cap back on the bottle.

“There’s more shepherd’s pie, if you want,” she said.

“No, I’m fine. That was great,” Cardinal said. He was trying to corner the last peas on his plate.

“There’s no dessert, unless you want cookies.”

“I always want cookies. The question is whether I want to be hoisted out of here by a forklift.”

Catherine took her plate and glass into the kitchen.

“What time are you heading out?” he called after her.

“Right now. It’s dark, the moon is up. Why not?”

Cardinal glanced outside. The full moon, an orange disc riding low above the lake, was quartered by the mullions of their window.

“You’re taking pictures of the moon? Don’t tell me you’re going into the calendar business.”

But Catherine wasn’t listening. She had disappeared down to the basement, and he could hear her pulling things off the shelves in her darkroom. Cardinal put the leftovers in the fridge and slotted his dishes into the dishwasher.

Catherine came back upstairs, zipped up her camera bag and dumped it beside the door while she put on her coat. It was a golden tan colour with brown leather trim on the cuffs and collar. She pulled a scarf from a hook and wrapped it once, twice, about her neck, then undid it again.

“No,” she said to herself. “It’ll be in the way.”

“How long is this expedition of yours?” Cardinal said, but his wife didn’t hear him. They’d been married nearly thirty years, but she still kept him guessing. Sometimes when she was going out to photograph, she would be chatty and excited, telling him every detail of her project until he was cross-eyed with the fine points of focal lengths and f-stops. Other times he wouldn’t know what she was planning until she emerged from her darkroom days or weeks later, clutching her prints like trophies from a personal safari. Tonight she was subdued.

“What time do you think you’ll get back?” Cardinal said.

Catherine tied a short plaid scarf around her neck and tucked it inside her jacket. “Does it matter? I thought you had to go back to work.”

“I do. Just curious.”

“Well, I’ll be home long before you.” She pulled her hair out from under her scarf and shook her head. Cardinal caught a whiff of her shampoo, a faint almondy smell. She sat down on the bench by the front door and opened her camera bag again. “Split-field filter. I knew I forgot something.”

She disappeared downstairs for a few moments and came back with the filter, which she dropped into the camera bag. Cardinal had no idea what a split-field filter might be.

“You going to the government dock again?” In the spring Catherine had done a series of photos on the shore of Lake Nipissing when the ice was breaking up. Great white slabs of ice stacking themselves up like geological strata.

“I’ve done the dock,” Catherine said, frowning a little. She strapped a collapsible tripod to the bottom of the camera bag. “Why all these questions?”

“Some people take pictures, other people ask questions.”

“I wish you wouldn’t. You know I don’t like to talk about stuff ahead of time.”

“Sometimes you do.”

“Not this time.” She stood up and slung the camera bag, bulky and heavy, over her shoulder.

“What a gorgeous night,” Cardinal said when they were outside. He stood for a moment looking up at the stars, but the glow of the moon washed most of them out. He took a deep breath, inhaling smells of pine and fallen leaves. It was Catherine’s favourite time of year too, but she wasn’t paying attention at the moment. She got straight into her car, a maroon PT Cruiser she’d bought used a couple of years earlier, started the engine and pulled out of the drive.

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Sort by: Showing all of 3 Customer Reviews

  • Posted December 9, 2008

    more from this reviewer

    excellent whodunit

    In Algonquin Bay, Canada after decades of battling depression Catherine Cardinal jumps from the roof of an apartment building. Her spouse local Homicide Detective John has feared this news for years, but is still devastated by her death. Not shocked that the short inquiry determines suicide not only because of the leaper¿s mental state, but also because there is no hint at foul play anywhere near the crime scene or in a quick look at Catherine¿s life as her psychiatrist Dr. Frederick Bell affirms his patient thought of killing herself. However, John is the only one with doubts as even his partner Lise Delorme thinks he is just trying to find shadows that are not there. Lise would like to be there for John, but is working a particularly ugly investigation into a pedophile photographing five years of preadolescent abuse. John begins an investigation into his wife¿s death on his own time without any official sanction. His superior Police Chief R.J. Kendall is irate and warns him to back off before assigning him to assist Lise. However, John has found some frightening numbers as the apparent suicide rate in Algonquin Bay has recently turned stratospheric though even he wonders if his grief is making him see a serial killer where there is none. --- Lise¿s police procedural and John¿s unofficial investigations make this an excellent whodunit. However, what makes Giles Blount novel one of the best tales of the year is the reactions of John to the apparent suicide of his wife as he goes through the stages of grief with an emphasis on denial in spite of the overwhelming evidence. BY THE TIME YOU READ THIS, fans will agree that Mr. Blount has provided a terrific personalized Canadian mystery that deserves award nominations. --- Harriet Klausner

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    Posted June 4, 2011

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