The Delicate Storm (John Cardinal and Lise DeLorme #2), Giles Blunt. London: HarperCollins, 2004.

Summary: A gruesome murder in the woods is soon followed by another, leading to an international investigation, a terrorist plot from the ’70’s, and a shrewd murderer on the loose, climaxed by an epic ice storm.

The call comes for John Cardinal when a local living near the woods reports a gruesome discovery. His dog has retrieved a severed human arm. The investigators retrieve more parts traced back to a cabin where the body was hacked apart to be eaten by bears. It’s an American scouting out ice fishing possibilities. The Mounties, are called in, including a former nemesis of Cardinal’s.

Meanwhile, Cardinal’s father’s heart condition is worsening. The one bright spot is a young woman doctor, Winter Cates, recently arrived and quickly embraced for her ability to connect with patients, including Cardinal’s father. Then she goes missing. Soon her naked body is found in the woods. That case goes to DeLorme, but they soon begin to wonder if the murders are connected. They wonder more when they discover a fifteen year old case of a woman murdered under similar circumstances, strangled with signs that made it look like she had been raped.

The only evidence they have is that Cates’ murderer apparently sought her out to treat a gunshot wound, leaving signs of type AB blood in her office, but nothing else. Then Cardinal goes to New York where the first murder victim lived to learn that the supposed victim is very much alive and that the real victim is a former CIA agent using his identity. But what was he doing in Canada? And why are Canadian Security Intelligence Services making it hard to track down the story behind this man?

While this is all going on, Cardinal is getting veiled death threats from a criminal he put away, due to be released from prison soon. They are coming to his home. A buried secret connected to the case is putting his family in jeopardy.

Further clues from the case of the murdered CIA agent lead to Montreal and a terrorist plot that resulted in the death of a hostage in the 1970’s and a mysterious figure, Yves Grenelle, who disappeared after the death. Could Grenelle be the killer who has left three bodies in the forests of Algonquin Bay, perhaps under another identity? Who is he and why Algonquin Bay?

An artist skilled in taking images and “aging” them gives DeLorme and Cardinal a clue to the identity of the killer, but there is not enough evidence to make an arrest, let alone convict, leading Cardinal to make a risky move to confront the suspected murderer amid a hundred year ice storm.

DeLorme and Cardinal work well while respecting boundaries. But they clearly notice each other–she appreciating Cardinal’s maturity and integrity, he noticing her attractiveness. Then they are thrown together, sharing a hotel room but in separate beds, when DeLorme’s room is flooded and none are available. Nothing happens, except in Cardinal’s mind, as he struggled to sleep. It’s awkward, and we’re left wondering how the two will work it out. At least Cardinal doesn’t keep it secret from his wife.

The book is one you don’t want to put down. There are threads left dangling for future books in the series. And having lived through ice storms with power outages, and frigid weather, Blunt captures the creeping dread one has in these kind of storms and the deeper frustration and ominous foreboding when one knows who a killer is but cannot find the way to prove it.