Depth of Field: A Granville Island Mystery [Paperback]

Thomas McCall may be a commercial photographer on Granville Island, but his third series appearance opens with classic P.I. lingo – “The fog outside my window was so thick you could scoop it up with a shovel and cart it away in a wheelbarrow” – and a shapely blonde calling herself Anna Waverley who wants to hire him. The job, taking photos of a boat for a prospective buyer, seems easy enough, but the busy McCall’s schedule necessitates sending his friend and business partner Bobbi to do the honors. For her efforts, she ends up floating in the marina, beaten within an inch of her life, and once again Tom transforms from shutterbug to investigator. Michael Blair serves up plot twists quick and plenty. His writing is terse and snappy and entertaining, but the novel unfolds like a relationship that has lost its passion. Both McCall and Bobbi are involved with partners they aren’t sure about, but the obvious next step – turning a platonic friendship into something more – suffers from the same kind of indecision. The duplicitous Anna would seem to be an interesting femme fatale, but her conniving ways lack the necessary sharpness. The stakes are high enough, but they would be stronger if Blair allowed all of his characters – especially the affable McCall – to engage with each other, and with the reader, at a more visceral level. In other words, Depth of Field too often stays in the shallow end of the emotional pool.

... (McCall's) an entertaining and intrepid amateur with a penchant for landing himself and his friends in murderous situations.

(Publishers Weekly )

Thank you, Michael Blair, and your Tom McCall, a laid-back West coast photographer who regularly gets wound up in more trouble than film...a good story and well written. (Star Phoenix, The )

An original tale with a rich cast of characters and a convincing sense of place, it will make you want to read the others in the series.

(Record, The )

Michael Blair, who lives in Montreal, writes about the other side of Canada in this smart and action-packed paperback. Enter a huge cast of colourful characters striding across the striking Vancouver landscape. Depth of Field is tightly written with good things on every page.

(Waterloo Region Record )

Depth of Field is the third in a series that I hope keeps going. It’s got the creative legs for more plots, character growth and first-rate storytelling. Blair’s skills at writing and pacing lead the reader toward a climax both surprising and satisfying.

(Hamilton Spectator, The )

Love affairs—McCall’s, his sister’s, Bobbi’s—all take their own beatings in Depth of Field, but among other things, unfortunate romances leave entertaining options open for future Tom McCall novels by Michael Blair—who has the goods, and just keeps getting better.

(London Free Press, The )

...Depth of Field [is] a thoroughly entertaining read.

(Murderoutthere.blogspot.com )

Michael Blair serves up plot twists quick and plenty. His writing is terse and snappy and entertaining…

(Quill & Quire )

Photographer Tom McCall's only regret about accepting an assignment from the beautiful Anna Waverley to photograph her boat for a potential buyer is that he has double-booked himself and needs to hand the assignment over to his partner, Bobbi.

Little does he know how much of a regret it will become. En route to the assignment, Bobbi is brutally beaten and left for dead.

As his partner lies in a coma, Tom searches for an explanation for the attack. Learning that Anna Waverley doesn't actually own the boat she was supposedly interest in selling, and in fact that the woman claiming to be Anna Waverley may have been an imposter, Tom believes he knows where to start his investigation.

Michael Blair is a freelance technical writer and editor living in Montreal. Depth of Field is his fifth mystery, and the third in his Granville Island Mysteries series. The first, If Looks Could Kill, was a finalist for the Chapters/Robertson Davies Prize in 1999 and shortlisted for the 2001 Quebec Writers' Federation First Book Prize.