Giles Blunt: Forty Words for Sorrow (UK 2014)

From the Publisher:
Dark, atmospheric and terrifying psychological serial killer thriller set in a freezing Ontario winter, guaranteed to chill readers to the bone: 'Forty Words for Sorrow is brilliant' Jonathan Kellerman

When four teenagers go missing in the small northern town of Algonquin Bay, the extensive police investigation comes up empty. Everyone is ready to give up, except Detective John Cardinal, an all-too-human loner whose persistence only serves to get him removed from homicide.

Then the mutilated body of thirteen-year-old Katie Pine is pulled out of an abandoned mineshaft. And only Cardinal is willing to consider the horrible truth: that this quiet town is home to the most vicious of killers. With the media, the provincial police and his own department questioning his every move, Cardinal follows increasingly tenuous threads towards the unthinkable. But time isn't only running out for him: there's also another young victim tied up in a basement wondering how and when he will die.

Giles Blunt: Forty Words for Sorrow. HarperCollins, ISBN: 9780007322299 (January, 2014), eBook, 0.84 MB (ca. 432 p.), £2.99.

Giles Blunt: Forty Words for Sorrow (UK 2011)

From the Publisher:
Dark, atmospheric and terrifying psychological serial killer thriller set in a freezing Ontario winter, guaranteed to chill readers to the bone: 'Forty Words for Sorrow is brilliant' Jonathan Kellerman

When four teenagers go missing in the small northern town of Algonquin Bay, the extensive police investigation comes up empty. Everyone is ready to give up, except Detective John Cardinal, an all-too-human loner whose persistence only serves to get him removed from homicide.

Then the mutilated body of thirteen-year-old Katie Pine is pulled out of an abandoned mineshaft. And only Cardinal is willing to consider the horrible truth: that this quiet town is home to the most vicious of killers. With the media, the provincial police and his own department questioning his every move, Cardinal follows increasingly tenuous threads towards the unthinkable. But time isn't only running out for him: there's also another young victim tied up in a basement wondering how and when he will die.

Giles Blunt: Forty Words for Sorrow. HarperCollins, ISBN: 9780007115778 (July, 2011), 425 p., £7.99.

Giles Blunt: Forty Words for Sorrow (USA 2005)

From the Publisher:
In the quiet Canadian town of Algonquin Bay, a frozen body has been found in an abandoned mine shaft. She is quickly identified as Katie Pine, a teenager who had disappeared months ago. At the time, Detective John Cardinal insisted that Katie was no ordinary runaway. His relentless pursuit and refusal to give up on the case got him demoted from Homicide. But now the Canadian police force wants Cardinal back on the case-with a new associate by his side. And as these two untrusting partners gather evidence of a serial murder spree, a pair of sociopaths is closing in on the next victim.

Giles Blunt: Forty Words for Sorrow. Berkley Book, ISBN: 0425206920 (May, 2005), 355 p., $16.00.

Giles Blunt: Forty Words for Sorrow (USA 2002)

From the Publisher:
In the quiet Canadian town of Algonquin Bay, a frozen body has been found in an abandoned mine shaft. She is quickly identified as Katie Pine, a teenager who had disappeared months ago. At the time, Detective John Cardinal insisted that Katie was no ordinary runaway. His relentless pursuit and refusal to give up on the case got him demoted from Homicide. But now the Canadian police force wants Cardinal back on the case-with a new associate by his side. And as these two untrusting partners gather evidence of a serial murder spree, a pair of sociopaths is closing in on the next victim...

Giles Blunt: Forty Words for Sorrow. Berkley Book, ISBN: 0425185168 (March, 2002), 368 p., $6.99.

Giles Blunt: Forty Words for Sorrow (UK 2002)

From the Publisher:
When four teenagers go missing in the small northern town of Algonquin Bay the extensive police investigation comes up empty. Everyone is ready to give up except Detective John Cardinal, an all-too-human loner whose persistence only serves to get him removed from homicide. Haunted by a criminal secret in his past, and convinced his own partner is investigating him, Cardinal is on the brink of losing his career -- and his family.

Then the mutilated body of thirteen-year-old Katie Pine is pulled out of an abandoned mineshaft. And only Cardinal is willing to consider the horrible truth: that this quiet town is home to the most vicious of killers. With the media, the provincial police and his own department questioning his every move, Cardinal knows that time is running out -- not just for him but for the next victim, tied up in a basement, waiting to die.

Giles Blunt: Forty Words for Sorrow. HarperCollins, ISBN: 0007115776 (January, 2002), 425 p., £5.99.

Giles Blunt: Forty Words for Sorrow (USA 2001)

From the Publisher:
When the badly decomposed body of thirteen-year-old Katie Pine is found in an abandoned mine shaft on the Chippewa Reserve, John Cardinal can take some small satisfaction in being proved right. It was Cardinal who'd kept the Pine case open-insisting she was no mere runaway, Cardinal who'd been demoted to the burglary squad for his excessive zeal.

Katie Pine isn't the only youngster to have gone missing in the rural town of Algonquin Bay, and Cardinal, brought back to the homicide division after the discovery of her body, is now given the go-ahead to reopen the files on three other lost kids. Then another youth is reported missing, and as cardinal adds his name to the caseload, he begins to see a pattern that screams "serial killer." Meanwhile, the brass have partnered him with Lisa Delorme, newly shifted to Homicide from the Office of Special Investigations, and Cardinal can't help but wonder if she's been sent to keep tabs on him. A guilty conscience makes him think so.

Utterly convincing in its details of how cops work, brilliant in its portrayal of two monstrous sociopaths, tense and terrifying in its crosscuts, between the cops in pursuit and the killers toying with their latest victim, Forty Words for Sorrow puts us in a small Canadian town in the dead of winter and makes us feel the cold, then turns the cold into a metaphor for the destruction of young lives. This is a novel that transcends its genre.

Giles Blunt: Forty Words for Sorrow. Putnam's, ISBN: 0399147527 (June, 2001), 344 p., $24.95.