Snow Job

William Deverell

Description

' Smart, beautifully written, and really, really, funny satire featuring Arthur Beauchamp. The Globe and Mail Finalist for the Stephen Leacock Humour Award In this zany political thriller, the leader of the despotic Asian nation of Bhashyistan declares war on Canada after a limo bearing its visiting delegation is blown sky-high in snowy Ottawa. The suspected assassin, Abzal Erzhan, a Bhashyistani revolutionary, disappears. Was he kidnapped, was he murdered, or did he get away scot-free? Enter famed trial lawyer Arthur Beauchamp, dragged from retirement on his idyllic Gulf Island farm. As he prepares to represent Erzhan, he must ponder a hard, ethical question: is the alleged terrorist guilty, or has he been set up to take the fall? Arthur soon finds himself tangled up with wily civil servants, scheming cabinet members, an abrasive Bhashyistani propagandist, and a government spy who stumbles about like a bull in a china shop. Meanwhile, the i

Informations

• Publié par: Ecw Press
• Date de parution: 26 octobre 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781773058542
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Snow Job An Arthur Beauchamp Novel
William Deverell





Contents Praise for William Deverell Also by William Deverell Dedication 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 Author’s Note About the Author Copyright


Praise for William Deverell
April Fool
(Winner of the 2006 Arthur Ellis Award for Best Novel)
“Deverell writes breathless prose, commas flying here and there with exuberant abandon, as he dissects the nuttiness of his various locations. . . . April Fool spills over with idiosyncratic characters.”
— Edmonton Journal
“[He] is one of Canada’s best and funniest mystery writers.”
— Ottawa Citizen
“Readers gladly follow all of Deverell’s distinctly drawn characters through tiny outposts on Canada’s West Coast to the courtrooms of Victoria and Vancouver and the fine hotels of Europe. He is a master storyteller with a wonderful sense of humour. The story flows effortlessly, and readers are twigs on the river, along for one hell of a ride.”
— Quill & Quire
Kill All the Judges
(Shortlisted for the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour)
“Expert crackling wit, laugh-out-loud crime, and madcap characters.”
— Canadian Living
“He’s a master of the laugh-out-loud crime novel.”
— Vancouver Sun
“ Kill All the Judges is replete with Stephen Leacock–like humour. . . . Yet for all its seemingly lighthearted humour, this is a work of great depth and complexity. Pay attention to every word and nuance, for this is a well-crafted and at times raging-mad study into the complexities of a human mind in turmoil.”
— Globe and Mail
Snow Job
(Shortlisted for the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour)
“A laugh-out-loud satire. . . . Snow Job is great, great fun!”
— Shelagh Rogers, The Next Chapter
“Deverell has much material that is as funny as anything he’s written. He is in prime comic form in his sendups of Canadian politicians.”
— Jack Batten, Toronto Star
“Witty, smart mystery . . . a fascinating cast of characters with a plot that hooks readers from the very first page.”
— The Chronicle Herald
I’ll See You in My Dreams
(Finalist for the Arthur Ellis Award)
“Deverell’s excellent fifth novel featuring lawyer Arthur Beauchamp (after 2009’s Snow Job ) finds him retired on Garibaldi Island near Vancouver — and still haunted by his first murder trial. Readers will hope they haven’t seen the last of the endearingly complex, fallible, and fascinating Beauchamp.”
— Publishers Weekly
“Bill Deverell, one of the finest of Canada’s writers, builds his best book ever. There is a great courtroom drama here, something that Deverell excels at.”
— Margaret Cannon, Globe and Mail
Sing a Worried Song
“I love Bill Deverell’s books. . . . This sixth Arthur Beauchamp book is simply brilliant.”
— Globe and Mail
“Deverell’s two kinds of pro at once: an extremely experienced lawyer and a long-time writer of crime fiction, he makes the courtroom scenes lively and realistic.”
— National Post
“He may be the most convincing of all writers of courtroom stories, way up there just beyond the lofty plateau occupied by such classic courtroom dramatists as Scott Turow and John Lescroart, and in the new book, it’s Deverell at peak form.”
— Toronto Star
Whipped
“ Whipped is vintage Deverell: sardonic yet humane, with a cast of complicated characters, seemingly effortless storytelling, and more than a touch of the absurd. Over twenty novels to his credit, and somehow he just keeps getting better.”
— John MacLachlan Gray, award-winning author of The Fiend in Human and Billy Bishop Goes to War
“William Deverell combines his unique rollicking, raucous, fast-paced writing style with his jaundiced eye for Canadian politics and his love for the work of a skilled trial lawyer, Arthur Beauchamp. Well worth a read.”
— Mike Harcourt, former Vancouver Mayor, B.C. Premier, fellow Garibaldi Island resident with Bill Deverell
“ Whipped is a heady blend of sex, politics, and blackmail with New Age group-grope, Russian perfidy, and Mafia machinations — a tale that’s fresh, original, and funny, a totally delightful romp.”
— Silver Donald Cameron, author of Warrior Lawyers and writer/narrator of the documentary film Green Rights: The Human Right to a Healthy World
Stung
“Deverell’s Stung is relevant, rich with countless memorable characters, loaded with courtroom suspense, and above all, tremendously readable. Up there with some of my favourite legal thrillers, a list that includes Turow and Connelly.”
— Linwood Barclay, New York Times bestselling author of Elevator Pitch and A Noise Downstairs
“ Stung — a blistering ride on a flaming meteor.”
— Joy Kogawa, author of acclaimed, award-winning novel Obasan
“Canada’s Raymond Chandler is at the top of his game in this rollicking, riveting tale of youthful valour versus corporate villainy. Both laugh-aloud funny and profound, Stung is a feast of wit, satire, and suspense to keep you up all night.”
— Ronald Wright, author of A Short History of Progress


Also by William Deverell
Fiction Needles High Crimes Mecca The Dance of Shiva Platinum Blues Mindfield Kill All the Lawyers Street Legal: The Betrayal Trial of Passion Slander The Laughing Falcon Mind Games April Fool Kill All the Judges Snow Job I’ll See You in My Dreams Sing a Worried Song Whipped Stung
Non-Fiction A Life on Trial


Dedication
To the memory of Jim Fulton, 1950–2008, selfless politician, passionate warrior for this planet


1
“I am satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that . . . that thing over there, that statue or whatever you want to call it, is what the Criminal Code calls a disgusting object. Guilty as charged.” As Judge Wilkie stammered through this verdict, his unbelieving eyes were fixed — as they’d been through much of the trial — on Exhibit One, a twelve-foot sculpture of a winged, serpent-necked anthropoid with its head halfway up its rear end.
Arthur Beauchamp, Q.C., hadn’t expected to hear any brave and stirring tribute to artistic freedom, not from this clubby former small-town practitioner. In all honesty, he himself was repelled by his client’s artificium — he’d even found himself nodding at the prosecutorial rhetoric: “Is this something you’d allow your five-year-old to see?” Arthur knew he should hold modern, liberal views, but one has to be true to himself, and the hopeless truth was he was a stodgy old fart. Even in his youth he’d been a stodgy old fart.
He was annoyed at losing of course, but mostly because of the blow to his pride — the judgment had brought his long string of victories, thirty-eight, to an ignoble end. A porno trial. If he were going to end his career at the bar — and he was determined this would be his last case — he’d have preferred to crash in the flames of a good old-fashioned murder.
The venue for this entertainment was Garibaldi Island’s unfinished community hall — the framing and siding were done, the roof in place, but windows not. Papers rustled in the balmy breezes from without, a late-September day on warming planet earth. A few score of the local mobile vulgus sat grinning on foldup metal chairs, amid sundry press and international art fanciers.
“Extraordinary.” That more satisfactory verdict had been whispered in awed tones by a museum curator during a break. “Breathtaking,” said a Boston gallery owner. “Such raw energy,” said a buyer for a California collector. Enthusiasts of the bizarre, they’d arrived on Garibaldi like aliens from some planet whose dwellers were required to be outfitted with Armani suits, Rolexes, and Prada bags. Arthur felt like a rube in his comfortable rumpled suit.
“That leaves the matter of sentence, Mr. Beauchamp.”
Arthur turned to Hamish McCoy, sitting at his elbow with his leprechaun grin, a pixie mix of Irish and Scots with a Newfoundland brogue. He’d been an artist of middling renown until he unveiled this work two years ago on Ferryboat Knoll. Now, thanks to all the tittering publicity and internet traffic, he’d been discovered; his pieces, mostly giant mythical creatures, were fetching respectable prices.
McCoy had intended the statue as satire — it was his penance for an earlier crime, a grow-op, two hundred kilograms of Orange Super Skunk, a scheme to pay down his mortgage. Judge Wilkie had granted him a discharge conditional on his erecting a sculpture near the ferry landing, a tourism enhancer. All through the trial, the motions, the arguments, the drone of testimony from art experts, the judge had been in a sulking fury. Out of court, he’d been overheard fulminating about how he’d given McCoy a break only to be mocked.
“A suspended sentence would admirably reflect the gravity of this victimless minor offence,” Arthur said.
Wilkie sat back, offended. “A slap on the wrist? For this obscene garbage?” He again fixed his obsessive gaze upon the statue, a study in stilled motion: looped