Back to The Taken. It is another fascinating bit of crime fiction, although its suspense factor is a little less than in the first book in the series, The Calling. I was able to put the book down without having to read it in one go. Still, the plot, the characters and the surprise ending are still signs of considerable talent behind the nom de plume. While the publisher announced at the launch of the first book in the series that another, namely The Taken, will follow in October of 2009, no such promise has been made so far since the release of the second book. This may be a good thing. Grinding out too many tales can turn into formulaic writing, and we really do not need this.

In this book The Taken is more focused on Port Dundas and areas close by, which resemble very much the small communities of Muskoka cottage country north of Toronto, but in the books the region is referred to as Westmuir. What we think of as the Ontario Provincial Police commonly called the OPP, has been turned into the Ontario Police Service or OPS. Micallef is in constant war with her commanding officers at headquarters in Barrie, who want to amalgamate outposts, so to speak, without seemingly realizing the size of the area Micallef and her little force have to cover.

The story opens with Micallef convalescing at her ex-husband's home after back surgery. It is not a happy solution, but the only one available. There she has been ensconced in the care of Glynnis, the ex's new wife. Also on scene is Hazel's aging mother, who almost died in The Calling thanks to the twists and turns of that book's plot.

Hazel is chomping at the bitt to get back to work and she quickly finds an excuse—despite pain—when a body is fished out of a local lake, mirroring the first part of a serial story published in the local newspaper. A lot of strange things happen next, none of which one wants to reveal. Let it suffice that the writer either knows a lot or had help with computer terminology and ways online. This knowledge is part of the plot for both the criminal mind and the police officers who attempt to solve what is happening.

Once again there is lots of atmosphere, whether events take place in the Port Dundas area or in downtown Toronto, where the plot moves as well. No cross country trips this time though, as happened in The Calling.

I'm still a little uneasy about the manner in which the writer lets Hazel swallow percocet tablets, a habit she developed in the previous tale. It really bothered me in The Calling, but left it unsaid. Our police chief is, however, making an effort to get off this highly addictive painkiller. The writer appears to be from a generation that sees drug use as something casually used without thinking of the consequences.

All this, of course, has nothing whatsoever to do with The Calling, a crime fiction debut mystery that has just come out in paperback after having been published here in hardcover in 2008, as well as in Britain and the United States. DI Micallef is a female version of the hard-drinking male detectives we usually encounter. She is a 61-year-old divorcee using her maiden name, and lives with her poker-playing octogenarian mother, who is determined to make her daughter lose weight. What's more, this DI has never had to solve a murder in her rural Ontario town. Mrs. Micallef, her mother, is known around fictional Port Dundas as 'her Honor', having served as mayor until recently. Has the writer of this new crime mystery series—for that is what is planned—been inspired to some extend by Mississauga's Mayor Hazel McCallion, a feisty octogenarian? Besides, the junior Ms Micallef is no less feisty, and she is nothing like those CSI female detectives, who never have a hair out of place, and are inclined to show a bit of décolletage.

When we first encounter DI Micallef she has suddenly been thrown out of her seemingly comfortable routine of solving petty crimes into the murder of an elderly cancer patient, Delia Chandler. This woman happens to have had an affair with Micallef's father, hence the DI has mixed feelings about the unfortunate victim. Then, when just 300 klicks further north, but within the same county, the mutilated body of an MS sufferer is found, splattered with Delia's blood, Micallef knows she has a serial killer on her hands who preys on the terminally ill.

Of course, no one in the provincial police bureaucracy takes her seriously. She is, therefore, forced to initiate her own manhunt that leads from Vancouver Island to Newfoundland. For the reader it is quite a journey from coast to coast, and worth hanging in for the long haul.