Kirk's Landing

by Mike Young
Deux Voiliers Publishing
Ottawa 2013
ISBN 978-0988104860

Reviewed Martin Bueno

Have you ever wanted to become invisible at will? You could walk unseen into a crowd or enter restricted places without being noticed. Indeed, you could certainly get yourself into a lot of trouble with the law if you had a penchant for mischief, but not if you were an undercover RCMP officer like Corporal Dave Browne busting inner city Toronto street gangs for drugs and crime. Unfortunately, his supernatural power to ‘fade’, which came to him naturally from the aboriginal spirit world, was not as he learned, always one hundred percent reliable. The novel begins as Dave suddenly re-appears at a biker gang meeting and upon being discovered, barely escapes with his life.

Forced into exile by his superiors, Dave is sent to a remote community in Northern Manitoba in charge of a police detachment in Kirk’s Landing. His intention is to bide his time and lie low until he can safely return to the big city, however, that is easier said than done as he finds himself entangled in the lives and issues of the locals including a disappearance,  a pollution cover-up at a high tech paper mill, and conflicts between natives and the white community.  There is more to learn about his native roots (an Ojibwa grandmother) and his acquired native powers from the Chief and the elders and from the Chief’s lovely daughter, the local barmaid JP. 

From the skillful hand of Mike Young, readers are captivated by the larger than life characters and of the likeable Mountie who in the end will always get his man.

This book is highly recommended to anyone who would enjoy a crime fiction with an added magical twist.