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A Killing Spring
 
 

A Killing Spring (Mass Market Paperback)

by Gail Bowen (Author)
4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
Price: CDN$ 8.99 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over CDN$ 39. Details
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A Killing Spring + The Wandering Soul Murders + Burying Ariel
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Product Details


Product Description

Review

“This is the best Kilbourn yet.”
Globe and Mail

A Killing Spring is a page-turner. More than a good mystery novel, it is a good novel, driving the reader deeper into a character who grows more interesting and alive with each book.”
LOOKwest Magazine

“Fast-paced…and almost pure action…An excellent read.”
The Saint John Telegraph-Journal

A Killing Spring stands at the head of the class as one of the year’s best.”
The Edmonton Journal


Product Description

Gail Bowen, winner of the 1995 Arthur Ellis Award for best crime novel for her last Joanne Kilbourn mystery, A Colder Kind of Death, is back – with her most daring mystery to date.

In the horrifying opening paragraph of A Killing Spring, Reed Gallagher, the head of the School of Journalism at the university where Joanne Kilbourn teaches, is found dead in a seedy rooming house. He is dressed in women’s lingerie, with an electric cord around his neck. Suicide, the police say. A clear case of accidental suicide. But for Joanne, who takes on the thankless task of breaking the news to Gallagher’s wife, this death is just the first in a series of misfortunes that rock her life, both professional and personal.

A few days after Gallagher’s death, the School of Journalism is vandalized – its offices and computers are trashed, and homophobic graffiti are sprayed everywhere. Then an unattractive and unpopular journalism student in Joanne’s politics class stops coming to school after complaining to an unbelieving Joanne that she’s being sexually harassed. Clearly, all is not as well at the university as Joanne had thought. Nor is all well in her love life after the casual racism of a stranger drives a wedge between Joanne and her lover, Inspector Alex Kequahtooway. To make matters worse, Joanne is unceremoniously fired by her best friend from the weekly political panel on Nationtv, which she’s being doing for years.

Badly shaken by these calamities, Joanne struggles to carry cheerfully on. Action, she knows, is better for her than moping. She decides to find out why her student has stopped coming to class, and in doing so, Joanne steps unknowingly into an on-campus world of fear and deceit and murder.

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Customer Reviews

3 Reviews
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 (2)
4 star:
 (1)
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Average Customer Review
4.7 out of 5 stars (3 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most helpful customer reviews

 
5.0 out of 5 stars This is a very literate mystery, well written & well plotted, Oct 30 2003
By M. C. Crammer (Decatur, GA USA) - See all my reviews
I'm very happy to have discovered this Canadian mystery writer. This mystery is part of a series set in Regina, Saskatchewan. Bowen's "detective" is Joanne Kilbourn, a middle-aged widow who is a political science professor at the Univerity of Regina, and who is raising four children (two at home, two grown). Joanne has an on-again, off-again Ojibway police-detective boyfriend. In the course of the mysteries, you also follow the lives of these characters and their relationships.

The plot involves several strands that more or less come together in the end. THe first involves a very unattractive young student who complains that she is being sexually harassed by a popular good-looking student. The second strand involves a professor who has apparently met an accidental death as the result of some perverse activities. The third strand involves vandalism in the university. The fourth strand involves JOanne's best friend's boyfriend -- a complete jerk.

Bowen is an English professor and not surprisingly, she writes with great skill: her mysteries have depth, her characters are vivid, and the plots are well-constructed. She describes people and places so well that I can imagine myself in the setting and talking to her characters.

All in all, there's plenty to keep the reader interested and turning the pages, and it all comes together satisfactorily in the end. For the reader who likes thoughtful, well-written mysteries (in the manner of Elizabeth George or Deborah Crombie), I highly recommend Gail Bowen in general and this mystery in particular.

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4.0 out of 5 stars a Killing Spring, Nov 5 2000
By sam (seattle) - See all my reviews
A Killing Spring is one in a series featuring Joanne Kilbourn, a Canadian college professor, as the amateur sleuth. There is a nice density to these mysteries: the reader is always aware of Joanne's full life--we see her with her children, her friends, as a political woman (her deceased husband was in politics), as well as with students in and out of the classroom. The mystery itself is good and Joanne's investigation of it quite believable--only at the end does she become improbably active. Gail Bowen is a good writer, and the depth of the mystery and Joanne's life gives the book a rich quality; the final scene is lovely. Joanne does have a romantic relationship with a policeman (as do many female amateur detectives). The policeman is a Native Canadian, and the two must deal with prejudice in this book. Joanne feels she has never before experienced prejudice, an astonishing belief, I thought, for a liberal woman. I highly recommend this mystery.
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5.0 out of 5 stars Canadian professor/sleuth in gripping tale, May 8 1999
By H. Meltzer (New York City) - See all my reviews
What a joy for a reader to discover a new author! A KILLING SPRING is the third Gail Bowen book I've read (one after the other after "finding" her) and she gets better and better. In too many mystery series, the protagonist stays the same age, everything around her is unchanging and, after reading a slew in a series, the reader discovers that about two months have elapsed. Not so with Joanne Kilbourn, political science professor in a Canadian college and amateur detective. Not only does Kilbourn grow - time goes by - her kids age - neighbors and friends change and develop. Combine all of the above with masterful story-telling skills and you have mystery writing at its best.
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