Carbon Copy by Ian McKercher
Book 3/5 of The Frances McFadden Series
2019, Ian McKercher, $25
Detective fiction, Historical Fiction, Homefront WW2
This fast-paced story takes place over a few days in February of 1942, and is a light-hearted, noir exploration of war-time Ottawa, with police and military intelligence people looking for spies, burglars, and mafiosi, while Bank of Canada secretary Frances McFadden finds herself caught in the middle of all of it.
This story is everything it could be. There’s a war going on, but it’s far away, so without any direct violence to the characters, the drama of the intelligence and diplomatic communities collide. Crime and international intrigue take stage, and the details leak out at a good enough pace to keep the reader guessing.
In addition to telling a well-crafted story, the setting is very strong. Ottawa is peaceful, war-weary, and connected to the rest of the world, in this case, particularly to British intelligence, Cuban and American diplomatic corps, and organized crime based in Montreal. These external power-plays take stage in Ottawa, but Ottawa plays more than some interchangeable backdrop, as there’s an effort to include the skiing regions, the unruly periphery of Gatineau, and some early-stage multiculturalism.
The only squatters on the red side of the ledger are that I think the characters are a little too liberal for the 1940s. Asian and Queer people are respectfully welcomed in the discourse, that I don’t think would be recognizable to many of those at the time. I understand not wanting to dwell on racism and traumatic homophobia, but erasure isn’t a great solution to that.
The other criticism is that this story takes place in February in Ottawa, which could have been played up more to add to the sense of isolation. Bundling up and trying to stay warm, hard to look over your shoulder. You can’t recognize people’s faces under their scarves and masks. This would have been a great addition to the mood of the spy/detective parts of the story, but was unfortunately a missed opportunity.
Those criticisms are minor when it comes to my assessment of the book. I went through this one much faster than other books recently, and I enjoyed the ride. The pacing was fun, the characters were as good as they needed to be in this genre. The setting and the mood were both great, and it was a nice trip through war-time Ottawa.
★★★★★
