About the book
About the author
Born in Montreal and raised in Hudson, Quebec, Louise Carson studied music in Montreal and Toronto, played jazz piano and sang in the chorus of the Canadian Opera Company. Carson has published fourteen books: Rope, a blend of poetry and prose; Mermaid Road, a lyrical novella; A Clearing, a collection of poetry; Executor, a mystery set in China and Toronto; Dog Poems, a collection of poetry; The Last Unsuitable Man, a thriller set in the Sunshine Coast; her historical fiction Deasil Widdy series: In Which, Measured, and Third Circle; and her Maples Mysteries series: The Cat Among Us, The Cat Vanishes, The Cat Between, The Cat Possessed, and A Clutter of Cats.
Her poems appear in literary magazines, chapbooks and anthologies from coast to coast, including The Best Canadian Poetry 2013. She's been short-listed in FreeFall Magazine's annual contest three times, and one poem won a Manitoba Magazine Award. Her novel In Which was shortlisted for a Quebec Writers' Federation award in 2019. She has presented her work in many public forums, including Hudson's Storyfest 2015, as well as in Montreal, Ottawa, Kingston, Toronto, Saskatoon and New York City.
She lives in St-Lazare, Quebec, where she writes, teaches music and gardens.
Excerpt
She became aware of a rhythmic tapping sound, the sound a branch hitting a house would make.
Tap, tap, tap. It was coming from around the back of the house. Finished stacking the wood, she turned to face the invisible sea and listened.
The mist moved sluggishly around her, altering the shapes of trees, shrubs and ferns, making some recede while others seemed to advance. The sun was well hidden and now she felt heavy and dull. Tap, tap, tap.
She plodded past the garage door to the right of the house. If something was rubbing on its exterior, Steve might want her to check it; he kept his houses, inside and out, in such good condition.
She turned left and scanned along the back of the house, located the source of the tapping. With a cry she stumbled forward.
Jane was hanging by her neck, her head down-turned, arms slack. One shoe (and afterwards Claire wondered that she had seen the shoe so clearly), a tasselled beige loafer, slapped against one of the wooden pillars that supported the balcony above. The other shoe lay on the concrete deck.
With a moan, Claire lunged forward, caught the legs and lifted, hoping, hoping, that by this manoeuvre, by releasing the body’s weight from its neck, Jane might revive.
The body was unexpectedly light. Claire, her face pressed into Jane’s thighs, inhaled the foreign smell of other people’s clothes: washed in different detergents, worn with different perfumes, containing the essences of their sweat, and gagged.
She became aware of the feel of the woman’s legs in her hands. Even someone as old as Jane shouldn’t have flesh that crumpled and gave under pressure. She let go and looked up.
The dummy hung by a rope someone had looped around the balcony railing. Where Claire had clasped it around its legs could be seen the indentations made by her hands. Its yellow plastic bag head, one from the local supermarket on which had been drawn coarse features in thick black ink, looked down at her.
She took a step back, one foot half on, half off, the deck, and fell backwards. A bramble broke most of her fall, but not before she hit her head on a mossy rock surrounded by ferns.
Reviews
“I normally review poetry, where there’s no issue of spoilers. In a cozy murder mystery like The Last Unsuitable Man, towards the literary side of writing, I don’t want to spoil any turns, and there are doozies. It is a vivid…” >>
— Pearl Pirie The Miramichi Reader
“Ex-lovers, ex-husbands, and murder
Louise Carson’s 14th book, The Last Unsuitable Man, is a combination of mystery, music, love affairs gone wrong, and slow-paced twists and thrills.
The thing I liked best about it is the…” >>
— Valerie Green The British Columbia Review
Upcoming event with Louise Carson
Saturday April 20, 2024 at 7:00 pm EDT
Montreal, QC
De Stiil Books (351 Duluth Ave E)
Louise Carson will read as part of a launch of Best Canadian Poetry 2024.
Upcoming event with Louise Carson
Saturday April 27, 2024 at 5:00 pm EDT
Ottawa, ON
Plan 99
Manx Pub (370 Elgin St)
Louise Carson will read as part of a launch of Best Canadian Poetry 2024
PURCHASE FORMAT
PAPERBACK
EBOOK
$9.99
256 pages
Epub ISBN: 9781773241166
Benetech Global Certified Accessible Ebook. This Publication meets the requirements of the EPUB Accessibility specification with conformance to WCAG 2.0 Level AA. This book contains various accessibility features such as alternative text for images, table of contents, page list, landmark, reading order, and structural navigation.
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