I'm happy to announce that the book launch for The Tom Thomson Mystery will be on November 16, 2024 at 1pm MST. The Purple Platypus Bookstore 5003B 50 Avenue in Castor Alberta will be hosting me and I'm thrilled to work with Lynn Sabo, the owner. There will be refreshments and perhaps some swag.
Here is an advance reader's review:
Thomas Thomson was a Canadian artist best known for his
landscapes. He spent his summers capturing the scenery in Algonquin Park,
Central Ontario, first in oil sketches on small wooden panels and then
producing larger works on canvas during the winter in Toronto. His best-known
piece of work is The Jack Pine. What isn’t so well known is how Tom
died. On July 8th, 1917, Tom’s canoe was found overturned in Canoe
Lake, not far from where he set out. His body wasn’t discovered until July 16,
1917, also floating in the lake close to where the canoe was found 8 days
earlier.Was he murdered? Did he commit suicide? Or was his death accidental?
Nobody knows.
Nancy M. Bell has skillfully woven the threads of fact and
fiction in her rendition of what might have happened. Her protagonist is young
Harriet St. George, a very modern-minded young lady who loves escaping her
strict family, particularly her stern father. She also summers at Mowat Lodge
on Canoe Lake in the Park. She loves to tramp through the woods, canoe, fish,
and paint to her heart’s content. Her friend Winnie Trainor, also a summer
visitor, is sweet on Tom, while Harriet appreciates his skill as an artist and
does her best to emulate him. But then Tom is missing.
Harriet suspects the Lodge managers, Shannon and Annie Fraser, of being involved in illegal activities. Who should she turn to for help? Besides Winne, the Park Ranger, Mark Robinson, is the only person she can share her suspicions with. All the characters are clearly introduced and have their place in the story of the search for Tom. The ending is unexpected and dramatic, and some readers may not see it coming, but it is an entirely satisfying conclusion to a true Canadian mystery
VM Chatham
I thought I'd include a small excerpt as well, just to whet your whistle.
This is the Preface:
Hello, let me introduce myself. I am
Harriet Agnes St. George. I’m sure you’re wondering what I have to do with Tom
Thomson, or indeed, with the mystery surrounding his death. I’m a painter as
well and the wilds of New Ontario, that which you now know of as Algonquin
Park, is one of my favourite places to indulge my passion. Being the early
1900s it is unusual for a woman to wander about unchaperoned, and in the bush
at that. But let me assure you, I am no ordinary woman. I like to think I’m the
forerunner of a new breed of women who will strike out and demand to be allowed
to reach their full potential without the mostly unwanted advice of some male
figurehead. It is only in April of this year of our Lord, 1917, that women are
allowed to vote. About time too, in my opinion.
Let’s just say, it’s a good thing my dear Great
Aunt Lois left me a sizable amount of money in her will, in my name and solely
in my control. Much to my father’s anger and dismay. But I digress.
Tom Thomson and I used to haunt the same
places and tramp the same paths and portages, sometimes alone and sometimes
together. Winnie Trainor often accompanied one or both of us, most often Tom as
she had a soft spot for the man. Winne wasn’t a painter, but she did love to
fish and was always happy to help portage. And she did have a yen for Tom, as I
have mentioned.
So, leaving you with this bit of background
information, I will endeavor to tell the tale of Tom Thomson’s death and the
aftermath as I know it. The subject is still a painful one for me, so as you
will soon see, I have set the story down in third person rather than first.
It’s a way of distancing myself from the grief and the anger at the treachery
that ended Tom’s life and his career.
Harriet St. George stepped off the train at
the Canoe Lake Station and smoothed down her skirts. Tipping her head back, she
took a deep breath of the sharp air of early May. It was so wonderful to be
free from the restraints of her rather conservative family. Here at Canoe Lake,
Harriet could dispense with the cumbersome skirts and traipse through the bush
clad in trousers and a flannel shirt. Not to mention the much more comfortable
boots she wore while in the woods, exploring for the perfect site to set up her
portable easel and paintbox. She loved the French name for her paintbox: Pochade.
It rolled off the tongue so nicely. Harriet giggled and refrained from doing
just that. The locals already thought she was a bit strange, well except for
Winnie Trainor who also liked to gad about in trousers and spend hours fishing
out on the lake.
Shaking her head, Harriet turned to collect
her luggage, not much more than the aforementioned paintbox and a duffle
stuffed with what she would need for a summer of painting and fishing in the
Park. Hopefully, the Frasers of Mowat Lodge had received her telegram, and her
room would be ready when she got there. With the paintbox in one hand and the
duffle over her shoulder, she went in search of the park ranger, Mark Robinson,
who kept track of all comings and goings in the Park and had promised to
arrange her transport from the station to the Mowat Lodge.
The duffle was heavier than one would
expect, but that weight made Harriet’s heart light. Along with the few clothes
stuffed haphazardly in the bottom, most of the room was taken up with her
collection of oil paints, brushes, and thin wooden shingles that she intended
to use painting en plien aire. She’d copied that trick from a fellow
painter she’d met last summer. Tom Thomson tended to paint quickly, but with an
accuracy and feel that Harriet envied, any place he found a scene in the woods
that spoke to him he captured it on the shingle boards. Only later did he
transform the rough painting on the board into a canvas, usually over the
winter when he returned to Toronto.
Someday, she promised herself. Someday
women artists would be recognized as well as the men. She loved the vibrant new
style that was developing in the Canadian art world. Slipping away from the
traditional method of reproducing a scene in minute detail. The advent of
photography was slowly making that form of art less popular. Thomson’s use of
colour and bold strokes of paint intrigued Harriet and she vowed to attempt to
hone her own skills this summer.
“Oh, Mark. There you are,” she greeted the
tall, thin park ranger who stepped out of the station house.
“Miss St. George.” Mark acknowledged her
with a tiny bob of his head.
“Oh, please, it’s Harriet,” she chided him.
“Once I ditch these skirts you’ll be hard pressed to tell me from the locals.”
Harriet gazed at the thick bush and the pale blue early May sky, the lake where
the ice was just beginning to break up. “I do love this place.”
“Harriet, then, if you wish. I’m sure if
your father was here he wouldn’t approve of me being so familiar.”
“Pish posh on my father. I’m free for the
summer of his stuffy ideas of what is proper for a young lady.” She giggled. “I
have my Great Aunt Lois to thank for this freedom. She left me a generous
inheritance with strict instructions to use it as my heart desired. And I
desire to spend the summer here, in Algonquin Park, painting and fishing.
Watching the stars and moon shining over the lake.”
I hope you enjoy the tale. Until next month stay well, stay happy.
