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Meg Harris Mysteries #2
Red Ice for a Shroud
A young Qubcoise sneaks off to meet her Algonquin lover in an isolated hunting camp on the Migiskan Reserve. Five days later, Meg Harris discovers her frozen and brutalized body. The young Native is charged with her murder, and Meg feels responsible, since the young woman was a member of a crew which was helping her to clear some ski trails. Meanwhile both Meg and her friend, band chief Eric, are faced with another disaster. Someone is supplying the band's children with drugs. Are the events connected? Meg, convinced of the innocence of the young man in the death of his lover, sets out to find the real killer against a backdrop of police prejudice.
360 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2006
1 person is currently reading
42 people want to read
About the author
R.J. Harlick
15 books33 followersCalled "queen of Canadian wilderness fiction", R.J. Harlick writes the acclaimed Meg Harris mystery series set in the wilds of Canada with an underlying native theme. There are currently seven books in the series with the eighth, Purple Palette for Murder, due out in October 2017.
The fourth book, Arctic Blue Death, was a finalist for the Arthur Ellis Best Novel award. Silver Totem of Shame was named one of the top ten summer crime fiction reads by the Globe & Mail and was a recommended beach read by the Seattle Public Library. Cold White Fear was a CBC recommended mystery read.
With Death's Golden Whisper, the first book in the Meg Harris mystery series, RJ introduces protagonist Meg Harris who has fled the urban frenzy of Toronto and her failed marriage to Three Deer Point, a remote wilderness property in West Quebec, that she inherited from her Great Aunt Agatha. She lives in a century old Victorian timber cottage perched on a granite point overlooking the black waters of Echo Lake. Her only neighbour is the reserve of the Fishhook Algonquins, or Migiskan Anishinabeg. She drinks a little too much and is afraid of the dark, yet her only companion in this remote cottage is her wimpy standard poodle, Sergei.
She has fled to this northern paradise to heal her bruised soul. But her sought after peace is invariably interrupted by injustice and murder. Unable to ignore it, Meg becomes enmeshed in a quagmire of murderous intrigue.
After travelling to Baffin Island in Arctic Blue Death, Meg decided that she would love to explore a different Canadian wilderness and visit with its native peoples in every other book. Silver Totem of Shame takes place in Vancouver and Haida Gwaii, the mystical islands of the Haida. Purple Palette for Murder has Meg flying to the Northwest Territories when her husband is charged with murder.
Though the story of each book can stand on its own, there is a backstory about Meg and other characters that evolves from book to book. So avid readers of mystery series might want to start with the first book, Death's Golden Whisper.
Harlick is a member and past president of Crime Writers of Canada and Capital Crime Writers. She is also a member of Sisters in Crime, The Writers Union of Canada and Quebec Writers Federation.
She is a regular panelists at such conferences as Bouchercon, Left Coast Crime, and Malice Domestic. She also does many store signings and library readings. To check out her schedule visit her blog. http://rjharlick.blogspot.ca
RJ blogs every second Tuesday on Criminal Minds - http://7criminalminds.blogspot.ca.
Visit with RJ on Facebook -https://www.facebook.com/RJHarlick
and on her website - http://www.rjharlick.ca
The fourth book, Arctic Blue Death, was a finalist for the Arthur Ellis Best Novel award. Silver Totem of Shame was named one of the top ten summer crime fiction reads by the Globe & Mail and was a recommended beach read by the Seattle Public Library. Cold White Fear was a CBC recommended mystery read.
With Death's Golden Whisper, the first book in the Meg Harris mystery series, RJ introduces protagonist Meg Harris who has fled the urban frenzy of Toronto and her failed marriage to Three Deer Point, a remote wilderness property in West Quebec, that she inherited from her Great Aunt Agatha. She lives in a century old Victorian timber cottage perched on a granite point overlooking the black waters of Echo Lake. Her only neighbour is the reserve of the Fishhook Algonquins, or Migiskan Anishinabeg. She drinks a little too much and is afraid of the dark, yet her only companion in this remote cottage is her wimpy standard poodle, Sergei.
She has fled to this northern paradise to heal her bruised soul. But her sought after peace is invariably interrupted by injustice and murder. Unable to ignore it, Meg becomes enmeshed in a quagmire of murderous intrigue.
After travelling to Baffin Island in Arctic Blue Death, Meg decided that she would love to explore a different Canadian wilderness and visit with its native peoples in every other book. Silver Totem of Shame takes place in Vancouver and Haida Gwaii, the mystical islands of the Haida. Purple Palette for Murder has Meg flying to the Northwest Territories when her husband is charged with murder.
Though the story of each book can stand on its own, there is a backstory about Meg and other characters that evolves from book to book. So avid readers of mystery series might want to start with the first book, Death's Golden Whisper.
Harlick is a member and past president of Crime Writers of Canada and Capital Crime Writers. She is also a member of Sisters in Crime, The Writers Union of Canada and Quebec Writers Federation.
She is a regular panelists at such conferences as Bouchercon, Left Coast Crime, and Malice Domestic. She also does many store signings and library readings. To check out her schedule visit her blog. http://rjharlick.blogspot.ca
RJ blogs every second Tuesday on Criminal Minds - http://7criminalminds.blogspot.ca.
Visit with RJ on Facebook -https://www.facebook.com/RJHarlick
and on her website - http://www.rjharlick.ca
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
August 31, 2023
When it comes to aboriginal populations in Canada, the Roman Catholic Church has a great deal to answer for
Meg Harris, living on the isolated western Quebec property that she inherited from her great aunt, is helping her erstwhile lover, local band chief Eric Odjik, to blaze a new network of trails for the first ever Migiskan Ski Marathon. The morning after the trail crew is forced to head for hearth and home during an intense blizzard, the frozen, brutally murdered bodies of a young women and one of the crew members are discovered close to the unfinished trail. The mystery deepens as one of the other crew members, the constabulary’s prime candidate for the guilty party and a suspect in the supply chain for heroin-laced marijuana that is being given to the local children, escapes custody and is thought to be using his wilderness savvy to hide in the nearby bush.
Aside from being a first-rate murder mystery that falls in the middle of a triangle cornered by cozy mystery, police procedural and suspense thriller, RED ICE FOR A SHROUD also tells a wonderful story with credible characters that readers will certainly care about. OK, I’ll admit it. Meg Harris is too gung-ho (perhaps even beyond the boundaries of credible) when it comes to placing herself in precarious situations that should have been passed off to the local branch of the Sûreté du Québec or the aboriginal police force … but if we didn’t allow author Harlick that literary license then there wouldn’t have really been a story at all!
Credible descriptions of local band politics, the relationship between aboriginal and provincial police forces, and the ugly historical relationship between aboriginals and the Roman Catholic Church across Canada definitely lift RED ICE FOR A SHROUD from pedestrian workaday mystery into the realm of engrossing puzzler that will keep readers interested and involved from beginning to end. I guarantee any reader that they will be certain they have solved the mystery before arriving at the final reveal (and, you WILL be close) but the actual ending is a surprise (and satisfying) ending that will definitely raise your eyebrows!
Definitely recommended.
Paul Weiss
Meg Harris, living on the isolated western Quebec property that she inherited from her great aunt, is helping her erstwhile lover, local band chief Eric Odjik, to blaze a new network of trails for the first ever Migiskan Ski Marathon. The morning after the trail crew is forced to head for hearth and home during an intense blizzard, the frozen, brutally murdered bodies of a young women and one of the crew members are discovered close to the unfinished trail. The mystery deepens as one of the other crew members, the constabulary’s prime candidate for the guilty party and a suspect in the supply chain for heroin-laced marijuana that is being given to the local children, escapes custody and is thought to be using his wilderness savvy to hide in the nearby bush.
Aside from being a first-rate murder mystery that falls in the middle of a triangle cornered by cozy mystery, police procedural and suspense thriller, RED ICE FOR A SHROUD also tells a wonderful story with credible characters that readers will certainly care about. OK, I’ll admit it. Meg Harris is too gung-ho (perhaps even beyond the boundaries of credible) when it comes to placing herself in precarious situations that should have been passed off to the local branch of the Sûreté du Québec or the aboriginal police force … but if we didn’t allow author Harlick that literary license then there wouldn’t have really been a story at all!
Credible descriptions of local band politics, the relationship between aboriginal and provincial police forces, and the ugly historical relationship between aboriginals and the Roman Catholic Church across Canada definitely lift RED ICE FOR A SHROUD from pedestrian workaday mystery into the realm of engrossing puzzler that will keep readers interested and involved from beginning to end. I guarantee any reader that they will be certain they have solved the mystery before arriving at the final reveal (and, you WILL be close) but the actual ending is a surprise (and satisfying) ending that will definitely raise your eyebrows!
Definitely recommended.
Paul Weiss
June 5, 2019
So this probably would have been a three star "nothing outstanding but a fine diversion" book, except for the ultimate resolution, which was bullshit. It was bullshit in a way which is spoilery, so I was going to put it behind a spoiler tag, and I still will, but I will also say this up front -the stuff that ruined this book for me was seriously homophobic and transphobic bullshit. So don't read it if you'd rather avoid that brand of bullshit in your fiction.
The details here:
The thing about RJ Harlick is that she's a decent writer, in terms of being able to write some evocative landscape, put a plot together that keeps pulling me along, and write a flawed but interesting main character. But too much bugged me about this book. The women characters, aside from Meg, mostly fall into virgin/whore binaries. She has no significant relationships with other women. The conflicts she creates between characters are manipulative and there just to 'create conflict' because that's something supposed to happen in a mystery book, as opposed to arising out of character and situations that are natural and true.
And then there's a whole dimension of white savior stuff that ehhhhh. I'm sure Harlick thinks of herself as an ally, and yes, there are sympathetic portrayals of the native folks, and of the racist attitudes they encounter in the police. But she also portrays Meg as the protector and problem solver for the native people she encounters, and they seem to have very little agency of their own. So it's very mixed on that front.
So overall I would not recommend this book to anyone. Annoyingly there is a book later in the series that is set in Yellowknife and I really want to read what she does with that, and with Dene characters (we see that trip being set up in this book, as a Dene character comes in that I presume we'll see more of). I'll probably read that one but with a possibly not terribly charitable starting viewpoint. We'll see.
The details here:
The thing about RJ Harlick is that she's a decent writer, in terms of being able to write some evocative landscape, put a plot together that keeps pulling me along, and write a flawed but interesting main character. But too much bugged me about this book. The women characters, aside from Meg, mostly fall into virgin/whore binaries. She has no significant relationships with other women. The conflicts she creates between characters are manipulative and there just to 'create conflict' because that's something supposed to happen in a mystery book, as opposed to arising out of character and situations that are natural and true.
And then there's a whole dimension of white savior stuff that ehhhhh. I'm sure Harlick thinks of herself as an ally, and yes, there are sympathetic portrayals of the native folks, and of the racist attitudes they encounter in the police. But she also portrays Meg as the protector and problem solver for the native people she encounters, and they seem to have very little agency of their own. So it's very mixed on that front.
So overall I would not recommend this book to anyone. Annoyingly there is a book later in the series that is set in Yellowknife and I really want to read what she does with that, and with Dene characters (we see that trip being set up in this book, as a Dene character comes in that I presume we'll see more of). I'll probably read that one but with a possibly not terribly charitable starting viewpoint. We'll see.
March 19, 2015
My favouite Meg Harris's mystery still is "A River Runs Orange." Maybe becasue it was the first one I read.
Want to read
March 16, 2019Synopsis: a young Quebecoise sneaks off to meet her Algonquin lover but she is soon found dead. Meg Harris needs to find the killer.
May 22, 2018
If I learned anything from this book, it's that I would never survive winter in the wild. The mystery was excellent. Setting is stunning but so cold. There were enough red herrings to keep my mind occupied throughout the entire book.
January 19, 2021
More confidant and stronger, Meg once again delves into proving a friend's innocence. Except, all evidence is proving his guilt.
Once again, Harlick portrays the vast inequalities between French Canadian Quebec and First Nation. There is deep insidious racism towards First Nation and the Quebec law enforcement.
She is impulsive and reckless but then it would not be a good read if she was passive right?
I personally have a snail mail Canadian pen pal from another part of Canada. Although I enjoy her letters, she has a tendency to point the finger upon her First Nation neighbors whenever there is trouble in her neighborhood. Although there is no outright racism, the connotation is there.
Once again, Harlick portrays the vast inequalities between French Canadian Quebec and First Nation. There is deep insidious racism towards First Nation and the Quebec law enforcement.
She is impulsive and reckless but then it would not be a good read if she was passive right?
I personally have a snail mail Canadian pen pal from another part of Canada. Although I enjoy her letters, she has a tendency to point the finger upon her First Nation neighbors whenever there is trouble in her neighborhood. Although there is no outright racism, the connotation is there.
August 14, 2018
Not as good as the first of this series... somewhat predictable .
October 28, 2015
Finally back into the 2nd of the Meg Harris series, after reading later books in the series. I was able to obtain the 2nd and 3rd books via the interlibrary loan services. It took a little while to re-orient myself to the series, set in the western forests of Quebec, east of Ottawa. Tensions between and among men and women, parents and children, French and English and Aboriginals, along with the pervasive social challenges, including the illegal drug trade. The book could easily have one been set in the northern US states, given the social and physical geography links.
This one takes place primarily in the winter, and her descriptions bring you right there. The book does help flesh out the settings, characters and back story of the later books in the series. I do recommend starting with the first volumes of the series, which have now been re-issued in a multi-book volume. Otherwise the first one is an even more difficult find.
This one takes place primarily in the winter, and her descriptions bring you right there. The book does help flesh out the settings, characters and back story of the later books in the series. I do recommend starting with the first volumes of the series, which have now been re-issued in a multi-book volume. Otherwise the first one is an even more difficult find.
December 30, 2015
Meh ... the story had potential but the writing was just okay.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews