As the Crow Dies

By Marwan Hassan

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0973463732
• ISBN13: 9780973463736
• Release Date: November 2005
• Publisher: Common Redpoll Books
• Length: 393 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Twisting the apple

Alec Knight is on a quest. That's not just a bad pun - finding things is his job. He's a private investigator in our city. We've met Alec before when he sought a missing briefcase [see The Lost Patent]. In that quest, Hassan, through Knight, took us through some Byzantine business practices and personalities. In As the Crow Dies, the financial world is again a sub-theme. In this book, the relationship of people with each other and how manipulation can lead to disastrous consequences, looms very large. The quest Knight is on this time isn't a collection of papers, but a missing young woman. Liz Strachan, a law student at Ottawa University, hasn't checked in. Her parents, a Kingston real estate law couple are concerned. They often pay her rent for an apartment. The apartment reflects a high flying lifestyle - soaring rather more elevated than a parents-supported student would likely reach. Top of the line stereo, a clock radio out of a New Yorker Magazine advert. And a wastebasket with a slip of paper displaying a string of apparently meaningless numbers. Alec Knight uses the numbers in the first step on his trail of the missing woman. They seem to represent money - lots of money. Liz Strachan has been dealing with some impressive amounts of money. With whom, and why she is involved with moving funds around becomes the centre of Knight's investigation of her disappearance. There is less concern over where Liz Strachan is than who she is. As a private investigator, Alec Knight relies on his younger days as a fruit picker earning money for school. "You don't pull the apple," he says. "You twist it gently until it falls into your hand." Alec uses this approach with each contact he meets. He's a master at ingratiation. Wheedling, cajoling, sympathising where called for and seemingly involving himself in the other's life to elicit information. He's sensitive enough to portray his views with theirs - "We're birds of a feather," is a typical line. Knight's investigative role-playing must be constantly shifting ground. He encounters Ed Stanley, a hulking fullback who has claims on Liz Strachan. The product of small-town Ontario, Ed seems the most open and uncomplicated of Knight's sources. The quest takes Alec to Liz' neighbour, Connie Yonge ["like the Toronto street"]. What is Connie's role in this tale? Is she Liz' lover? Financial advisor? Personal counsellor? Connie's been a busy lady and her relationship with Alec ebbs and flows like a hyperactive tide. In contrast, he must deal with Madeleine Masson, widow of a man whose business, legal and personal dealings have core meaning to this story. A calm, reserved woman, she maintains a quiet passion to resolve the mystery of her husband's death. A hit-and-run on a quiet Quebec road seems too pat a circumstance for Madeleine to accept without question. Add to the melange Alec's dealing with legal heavyweight Norm Burley, the mixture almost coagulates. Burley is a p