Every time I open a book I hope it will be a good book. I would be surprised if any reader had a different hope. With authors I know well I have more hopes. With authors I know best such as Anthony Bidulka I have the most hopes. This post will be the 37th I have written about Anthony and his books. I estimate the posts total about 28,000 words or 85 pages.
Fourteen years ago I hoped the Russell Quant series would continue after Dos Equis. Twelve years ago I expressed regret to Anthony that he was not planning to write another Russell Quant novel. Anthony told me he was standing by the position that he had stated to Metro News that he would “never say never” about continuing the series. I described the situation as an “indefinite hiatus”. I clung to a faint hope Russell would return as Anthony wrote seven novels not featuring Russell. Thus, I was very excited when my hope of more Russell Quant was realized this year with Quant.
I had two further hopes in the email exchange with Anthony in 2014 over the Russell Quant hiatus. I wrote:
I have always thought Russell could be involved in an adventure with his mother in the area of the family farm.
My heart is bursting as both hopes were fulfilled in Quant where Russell’s mother, Kay, is deeply involved in the plot and the Canadian parts of the book are set in and around Howell, the community where Russell grew up and the family farm is located.
I had also hoped that Russell might encounter some of the characters from Anthony’s other books if the hiatus ended. After all, Saskatchewan has only 1.2 million people. We encounter each other a lot. In an email exchange with Anthony last year on Home Fires, the third book in the Merry Bell trilogy, I wrote:
In a final plea I would love to see you write a mystery in which Russell joins Merry and Roger/Stella. I think it would be a grand adventure.
Quant is not about Russell joining Merry and Roger/Stella but it is entertaining with its connections to Anthony’s non-Russell Quant books, especially for readers familiar with the series.
I hoped, actually I knew that in a new Russell Quant mystery, that Anthony would continue to write about under-represented people and places in crime fiction.
Anthony carries on exploring Anthony’s life as a gay man in Saskatchewan.
Anthony has a powerful section on Russell’s private investigation agency agonizing over an almost impossible LGBTQ+ situation. Sometimes, as first year law students learn to their dismay, there is no right answer but there may be a best answer.
I am not sure if it was intentional but Anthony was writing in Quant about a different under-represented group and place. Rural Canada and its residents, outside Saskatchewan, are under-represented in crime fiction.
Taking a quick look at the over 200 reviews I have written on Canadian crime fiction outside Saskatchewan, about 30 are set in the country.
I did not include the 20 books in the Gamache series by Louise Penny as set in the country. While some books in the series mainly take place in the fictional Three Pines, most of the action in the series is in Montreal and urban Quebec.
The country is well represented in Saskatchewan crime fiction as a setting outside the books of Anthony and Gail Bowen.
In the combined 35 books of Anthony and Gail Bowen before Quant which have Saskatchewan as their major setting, only Anthony’s Going to Beautiful is truly set in rural Saskatchewan. In the 35 books characters visit or come from or sometimes stay in rural Saskatchewan but the plots primarily take place in our largest cities, Saskatoon (Livingsky) and Regina.
Of the 17 books of Saskatchewan crime fiction by authors other than Anthony or Gail that I have read 16 are set in rural Saskatchewan.
I expressed a modest hope to Anthony years ago for Russell to have at least part of an adventure in Melfort where Anthony’s sister Fran, now sadly gone, and I have both lived. The hope was partially fulfilled. Russell made a visit to Melfort in Quant to interview a witness.
I had another hope for the series that was realized but I will not describe it as I feel it is too great a spoiler. That hope will be a mystery within my trio of posts about Quant. I will be interested in talking to readers of the series after they read Quant in the fall to see if they had that same hope.
My final hope after reading Quant is that there will be another Russell Quant book. I believe there are abundant plots to explore. He could fulfill my hope for Russell to have an adventure in Melfort.
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