“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 and compelling read from a writer with a sharp and complex mind.

There’s a pile of detailed observations and characters that sounds like people you have met, or at least people I’ve met. At the start, I wondered where it was going, with an ambiance of anomie, blank facial expressions, lack of caring, frustration and depressive echo in the landscape but that’s the Great Canadian Literary novel’s influence and the personality of the narrator. The weather and landscapes are nearly characters. It isn’t atmospheric as a stultifying pace but as a sure presence. There’s a sure hand at work here, not a potboiler stamp.

It is primarily a coming-of-age story with social commentary laced through it. For example, p. 205,  she speaks of working in opera, “so mirrored in real life, so unchanging through the centuries, the women characters, created by men—suffering, always suffering—had eventually made her sick.” I can hear that. Her life is more feminist than most I’ve seen in a murder mystery; women divorce, choose abortion, and accept or hate exes. In a particularly poignant poetic phrase, (p. 222) the narrator speaks of her ex, “we are none of us perfect, she had learned, no matter how much we love.”

Carson is also a poet, and I’ve read two of her previous collections quite a long time ago, but none of her fiction. She has also, while I wasn’t watching, put out a fantasy trilogy and a series of 5 Maples’ mysteries. I would guess as a rough category it is boxed with the popular The Cat Who series by Lilian Jackson Braun. Knowing the dark acerbic view of Carson, from what I have read, I would guess the similarity ends there, there’s a cat and a murder.

The Last Unsuitable Man is a stand-alone, not in the series. It is not yet another adolescent story but a coming to peace with oneself as a senior, as a survivor, as grey-haired, as luckier than you might have been. The narrator is tough and overlooked and looks back over her life--which would be simpler if bodies followed by police didn’t keep happening as you’re trying to rest, heal and write your next novel while on a writing retreat. It is meta in an amusing way. It winks as if to say, murder mysteries are diverting, sure, but different when they barge into your own life in all their all-consuming ways. She’s just here to do a bookstore reading.

It has some sweet commentary of writing life in asides. It is offbeat and off the beaten track for where it goes and how it gets there with a narrator who is kind of like A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman. Not a sunny soul, more beleaguered.

I read the 256-page book over 3 days. I have been going over moments and reveals for weeks in my head and can still see the ocean-side cottage and sunny cafe in British Columbia as if they were my own memories.

Being inculcated into the genre by another Louise, Louise Penny, I felt meal scenes as security touchstones, but it isn’t a foodie novel as some of Penny’s.

The rocky start gave me pause. What kind of person gives directions to their house as "past the puppy mill sign"? Eventually, we find that is more foreshadowing of the kind of rough Quebec neighbourhood the narrator goes to & it fits the direction-giver.

The uniquely grounded novelist narrator is aware of herself as an older white woman, still nervous walking along the highway but feeling protected by her presentation, aware of not being indigenous and young in B.C. on a lonely coastal strip. She has a theory of mind on how things look to the police questioning all the neighbours and how they would perceive her as they investigate a murder when they find a murder manuscript.

It is organized and themes by music, a touchstone. The four sections are: Allegro, Andante, Scherzo and Presto. If you are more of a music person than me these probably hold echoes and resonances.”

— Pearl Pirie The Miramichi Reader

Read the full review at 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 division of the book’s parts described in musical terms—Allegro, Andante, Scherzo and Presto (Lively, Moderately Slow, Upbeat and Extremely Fast)—although I did feel that Andante should have been first, as the story begins slowly and then gradually picks up the pace.

These musical expressions set the scene for the story of protagonist Claire Denman, a struggling mystery writer and opera lover, who is hired by an elderly, wealthy woman—Jane Robertson—to assist her in moving her three cats on a flight from Montreal to the Sunshine Coast of British Columbia. The reason Jane needs a travelling companion is because she is only putting one cat in cargo and wants the other two with her on the plane. Since the airline allow only one cat per person, Claire is hired to carry one. As Jane is moving west and will be renting a house on the Sunshine Coast owned by Ben (Claire’s brother) and near to his own property, Claire is more than happy to make the journey with the woman as an excuse to visit her brother and his wife Virginia, both of whom she hasn’t seen for a while.

Unsuitable begins as Claire is driving to Jane’s house where she will stay overnight so they can leave together early next morning to catch the flight from Ottawa to Vancouver. She has left behind her adult daughter, Tamzin, to take care of her own house and cat while she is away.

The first meeting at Jane’s almost empty house is strange on many levels. Jane has been packing up her things in order to sell her house and permanently move out west to a warmer climate and be near her other son, Alexander. At first glance, there are many characters flitting in and out of the story which Claire (and the reader) might find confusing. I constantly back-checked to be clear about who was who.

There is Jane’s son, Edmund, two house cleaners, Lulu and Frizette, who apparently take drugs, but as Jane informs Claire, “they clean all night sometimes. They say it’s the drugs—they don’t do serious drugs—just grass and a bit of meth.” Neither she nor her son appears to be bothered by that. While Edmund has a beer and Jane is constantly asking for another scotch, Claire is left much to her own devices in order to find her room for the night, the bathroom, and something to eat after her already long journey.

As if all this confusion is not enough to contend with, the author adds three more names to the story for the reader to digest. Jane’s troublesome three cats—Daisy, Kookla and Mercury—that make Claire wonder if the whole idea of this trip is a big mistake.

The flight west is stressful and upon arrival the next day in British Columbia, the author meets Jane’s other son, Alexander, who will drive them to their destination. While dozing on the plane, she thinks about the men in her past and wonders if they—“ex-husband, the two serious lovers, and the casuals” are still alive. Mostly, she reflects on the man she called “the Serb,” her married lover. She is thinking specifically about him because on the way to driving them to the airport, Edmund casually mentions Jane’s late husband and referred to him as “the Serb,” although his name is Matija: “How her heart had jolted when Edmund had said those two words in the car. What were the odds?” Could Claire be travelling with the wife of her ex-lover?

Here is where the story really picks up. Unfortunately, Claire’s sister-in-law, Veronica, must leave the next day to take care of her ailing uncle, and Ben will be joining her a few days later, which will leave Claire alone at their house to take care of things. After a very pleasant few days with her brother enable her to become familiar with the house again, she is on her own. And that is when a series of strange happenings begin, only interrupted by the author’s frequent descriptive prose of British Columbia’s scenery that tends to slow down the story.

Claire’s days are filled with writing poetry, watching and identifying the local birds, and exploring the nearby town. But when objects go missing and messes appear in the house that Claire can’t remember making, she begins to believe she is losing her mind. She is particularly afraid after Jane moves into the nearby house, which she is renting from Ben.

The most frightening part of the story for the protagonist is when she realizes whole days have been erased from her memory, most especially when Jane is found dead, followed shortly afterwards by her other son, Edmund’s lifeless body being found on the beach below the house. Claire had no idea that Edmund had come west and had assumed he was still back in Ontario.

Throughout the story, I had rooted for Claire and believed she had been framed for murder, but then the story takes a surprising twist. The ending will surprise you while keeping you guessing. What really happened? Louise Carson’s answer is well worth reading. ”

— Valerie Green The British Columbia Review

Read the full review at The British Columbia Review.