Review: Good read!
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 11 12, 2012
Victim is a very well-written and thoughtful mystery set in a rural Canadian village (Burchill) with a school principal (Emily Taylor) as the protagonist with a secret. Trying to maintain a new found calm translates to Emily's getting involved when first one and then another of local Canadian First Nation (Ojibwa) women disappear under mysterious circumstances. Add in the impact of modernization, growth, and greed on the security and closeness of the Burchill community as well as the Ojibwa people. It is not necessary for the reader to be knowledgable of the area - Astolfo has intertwined the beliefs and stories of the tribe with sufficient detail that the reader, through the characters and voice of Emily, Will, May and Ed, along with Agnes, can appreciate all that is at stake.The mystery unfolds from the dual disappearance, differences among friends, the greed and destruction of nature, to murder and fire seamlessly. At the same time the personalities of the characters are developed and clues laid for the ending. The characters and setting are likeable and draw in the reader. After reading Victim, I went back to read the prior one in the series (Bridgeman); I look forward to reading the rest of the series.