Crime Machine by Giles Blunt is the 5th book in his police procedural series that features Canadian police detective John Cardinal. It has been a year since his wife was murdered, and John has made a few changes in his life, but he is still a dedicated detective working out of Algonquin Lake, Ontario. John, his partner Lise Delorme and other members of the force are looking at cold cases when a new and horrifying crime happens. A Russian couple have been found in an empty summer home, both have been shot and then beheaded.

This is just the beginning of a bizarre case where criminal acts are committed by members of a crime family. Some of these criminals are mere children, while others are psychopathic. The story takes many twists and turns and John and Lise work diligently at untangling the various threads and putting the case together.

This is a great series and Crime Machine is a thrilling addition. The author skilfully ties the various threads together and gives the book a ‘wow’ factor with the edge-of-your-seat opening and closing. Overall I thoroughly enjoyed this complex and well written mystery. ( )

Absolute quality return of Cardinal and Delorme as gruesome deaths return to Algonquin Bay. Well written atmospheric clever descriptive intelligent Police procedural murder mystery, everything we have come to expect from this brilliant Author. Gripping riveting page turner from first to last page.
Completely and utterly recommended. ( )

The last book in this series, By the Time you Read This, opened with Detective John Cardinal's wife's body being found at the base of an apartment building. In this book it has been about a year since she died and Cardinal has (sort of) moved on with his life. He sold the house he and Catherine lived in and bought an expensive condominium which is plagued with moisture issues. He is still working as a detective for the Algonquin Bay police so he is one of the first officers called when two headless bodies are found in a summer residence. The male and female are dressed in expensive clothes including fur coats but other than that there is not much to identify them. When they are identified as two Russian-Americans in town for the annual fur auction the immediate thought is that the Russian mafia are somehow responsible. It is apparent that someone escaped the cottage after hiding under the bed and Cardinal and his partner, Lise Delorme, would like to talk to that person. The reader actually knows that the person in hiding was a young indigenous woman who met her lover, the real estate agent for the house, there. Her lover left first and she was about to leave when people entered the house. When she heard gunshots she panicked, threw a chair against the bedroom window and jumped out into the snow. The killer chased her but she managed to get away, dropping her cell phone in the panic. She wants to call the police but her lover, who is married, tells her not to. Now she is worried that the killer can trace her by her cell phone and that she will be next on the list of homicides. Meanwhile the press is in town to cover this bizarre crime and one reporter from New York seems to know a lot more about the dead couple. She gets to know Cardinal maybe because she wants the inside scoop but maybe she is also genuinely attracted to him. For Cardinal it is the first time he has felt any interest in a female since Catherine died so he is hoping it is the latter. As things turn out he will regret the fling but not because he is still grieving.

There is a lot of description of the countryside and the weather just as there should be in a Canadian crime novel. ( )

Enjoyed the story, but was sorry to see that the author had to add vulgarity to sell his work. ( )

The fifth of the John Cardinal/Lise Delorme Canadian police procedurals was worth the read. Set in Algonquin Bay, a couple of hundred miles north of Toronto, the town of 60,000 or so is rocked by a particularly grisly crime: the murder and beheading of two wealthy Russian fur dealers in town for the annual fur fair. Cardinal is lead investigator, and is also assigned to clearing a cold case from almost forty years earlier involving the disappearance of a family. How the two investigations work out is consistently interesting, as is Cardinal and Delorme's friendship. As in the other books, supporting characters are carefully drawn, the investigations are well conducted, and there is a burst of action near the end. ( )