The Trickster’s Lullaby

Author/Guide: Barbara Fradkin

Why a Booktrail?

2000s: A winter camping trip turns deadly in the remote Laurentian wilderness.

ISBN: 978-1459735408
Genre: Thriller

Comment

What you need to know before your trail

Amanda Doucette’s cross-Canada charity tour is in for a cold snap when she organizes a winter camping trip for inner-city young people in the stunning setting of the Laurentian Mountains. With a view to bridging cultural divides, she brings along a mixture of Canadian-born and immigrant youth.

Trouble begins when two of the teenagers disappear into the wilderness during the night: Luc, a French/English-Canadian with a history of drug use, and Yasmina, an adventurous young woman from Iraq who dreams of becoming a human rights lawyer. Although frantic, their parents are strangely secretive amid suspicions of drug use and forbidden romance. But when a local farmer turns up dead and terrorist material is found on Luc’s computer, the dangers turn deadly. Now in a battle against both the elements and police, Amanda and Corporal Chris Tymko discover a far greater web of secrets and deception.

As Amanda races to save the young people from danger, she finds herself fighting for stakes far higher than their own lives.

Travel Guide

Laurentian Mountains

Montreal residents flock to the winter skiing and summer kayking in the nearby Laurentian Mountains,and this is the scary setting of this murder mystery

The P’tit Train du Nord linear park

A trail of more than 232 km (144 mi.) running along a former rail line between Bois-des-Fillion and Mont-Laurier, is Canada’s longest linear park and features year-round activities.

Mont-Tremblant

Mont-Tremblant is a town and a national park set within the Laurentian Mountains, northwest of Montréal. The year-round Mont-Tremblant Ski Resort, on the shores of Lake Tremblant, features acclaimed winter sports, golf courses and a shops!. Mont-Tremblant National Park offers forested hiking trails and lakes for canoeing, along with winter activities.

Booktrailer Review

A premise example of when what looks innocent really isn’t. It all started with a very false sense of security where a group of teenagers from troubled backgrounds, many of them recent asylum seekers to the country are taken into the Canadian wilderness to see and appreciate its beatuty.
Well you just know how that’s going to work out! Organiser Amanda does have good reasons for doing this (former book explains her story here) but it’s a noble attempt by anyone to try and make good for people in peril. Try telling the teenagers that though.

This escalates quickly and there are some moment which ring true but others where you can’t help wonder why they were brought here in the first place. Who thought this was going to be a good idea?

The landscape means that everything you read is focused and tightly plotted so that the characters have to do everything they can to survive. What do people do when pushed to the limits? The location of the events with their tricky legal issues and those of jurisdiction were interesting and the sense of peril and adventure do keep you reading. Brrr