Woodbine Grove

"Woodbine Grove's a haunted sort of place and the apparitions seem both restless and vengeful... There's longstanding bitterness between some white citizens of the town and the nearby reservation that seems to stretch back to the Nineteenth Century; and race relations appear to be getting worse... Evidently, this pocket of the Fraser Valley is particularly blood-soaked.

Debut novelist Ryan O'Dowd opens Woodbine Grove with a prologue where atmosphere is cranked up to maximum. In the municipality's nearby Whitesand area, where "rez dogs howled hymns of misery for the dying day," young aboriginal activist Ignacio Lahari observes his "wasteland" surrounding and feels "unspeakably afraid." He's right to, as five pages later his heart has ceased to beat.

When the first chapter starts with "They buried Neil Reinhardt on Labour Day weekend..." O'Dowd signals where readers will be heading: there's a mystery afoot... danger for the investigators, especially as they peer beyond those "socially contracted niceties and polite smiles" that reveal so little and disguise so much.

High school acquaintances Ruby Sinclair and Alinta Laghari command attention... They're lonely, angry, and sad, and rail against the falsity of the status quo. O'Dowd's characterization of them shows real panache... O'Dowd unfurls a plot that's gripping-yes, a kind of gonzo gothic-and, always, anchored by the friendship and detective efforts of Ruby and Alinta.

- Brett Josef Grubisic, The BC Review