Albert J Tretheway

Set in the Ontario city of Fort York in 1940, this novel introduces readers to Albert V. Tretheway (pronounced TreTHOOee), an oversized Inspector in the Fort York Police Department, along with his colleague, Jonathan (Jake) Small, his sister Adelaine (Addie), and a bizarre collection of characters who make up the Fort York City Council. In early 1940, Fort York is chiefly concerned with the war; that is, until a series of crimes turns their attention to dangers closer to home. A dead, unplucked chicken with an arrow through its heart is delivered to Junior Alderman Gertrude Valentine, which marks the beginning of a series of "pranks" on subsequent holidays, eventually leading to murder. The city waits breathlessly for each week to pass, wondering which holiday (and which Alderman) will be next. The story reaches its raucous climax on New Year's Eve in Albert and Addie's boarding house, where Tretheway unravels the mystery in front of the entire cast of citizens.

Once again, murder and other dark doings strike the small city of Fort York, Canada, during World War II and Inspector Albert V. Tretheway now Regional Officer, Air Raid Precaution is the one man who can solve the mystery. It all begins on January 13, 1943 when Fort York is in the midst of its most complete wartime blackout. Suddenly there are reports of an eerie flume like light in the marsh outside the town. Tretheway finds evidence of weird practices that his friend Cynthia Moon identifies as the work of a coven of witches. This is a fitting sequel at once hilarious and blood chilling to the first Tretheway mystery, A Good Year for Murder.

Once more we meet the inimitable Inspector Albert V. Tretheway and his colleague, Constable Jonathan (Jake) Small, in the Canadian city of Fort York in 1939. Pranks begin when Tretheway's beloved bowler hat disappears. Three weeks later Tretheway and Jake investigate a nervous neighbor's report about an anonymous phone tip that her long-dead husband is in her garage. They find instead a live horse wearing Tretheway's missing bowler. The pranks escalate, and only Tretheway connects them and surmises they are movie-inspired. The guessing game begins. Which movie is next? When the fourth prank involves a pre-dug grave, the Hindu Goddess Kali and the murder of a popular Bugle-Major, Tretheway spearheads a chase, cerebral and physical, through more movie murder adventures to a fiery spectacular finale.