Aloha, Candy Hearts: A Russell Quant Mystery #6
2009 Saskatchewan Book Award Finalist for Book of the Year Award
2010 Arthur Ellis Award for Best Crime Novel Finalist
2011 American Library Association GLBT Round Table Over The Rainbow Top Mystery
ISBN 13: 978-1-897178-76-8
From Pacific to Prairie, a teasing treasure hunt turns into a frightening game of cat and mouse. PI Russell Quant is plunged into the vagaries of a shocking hometown murder and the blasphemous blackmail of one of the literary world's most esteemed writers.
Russell can’t be sure whether a dead man’s surprising last gift is a treasure map or wild goose chase. With a series of clues that beckon Russell into the annals of suppressed Saskatoon history, he revisits the harsh realities of early homesteaders, investigates an infamous local sports heroine, escapes a second-run movie house, and digs for clues beneath the site of a never-forgotten scourge. As past reveals future, the hunter become the huntee.
Attempting to keep pace with his latest mystery, Russell balances his professional life with the demands of a wedding, a memorial, and at least one home-cooked meal at Mom’s. With the Hawaiian sand barely shook free from his hair, Russell is confronted, professionally and personally, with the harsh consequences of indecision. Saying hello and good-bye is never easy.
Chapter 1
"We were dining at La Mer, on the second floor of the hotel. The menu featured Neoclassic French cuisine. I didn’t know what that meant, but I liked it all the same. I liked it a lot. It might have been the champagne they served us before our butts were in our chairs. Or the unimpeded view of Waikiki beach, the Pacific Ocean, and Diamond Head."
Alex and Russell dining at La Mer - Chapter 1
Waikiki, Oahu, Hawaii
Chapter 1
"We were dining at La Mer, on the second floor of the hotel."
Just outside La Mer - Chapter 1
Halekulani Hotel, Waikiki, Oahu, Hawaii
Chapter 1
"In the early evening, after cleaning up, we’d return to House Without a Key, wearing our tropical whites and shirts that billowed in the perfect breeze and find a spot under the Kiawe tree."
Russell and Alex under the Kiawe Tree - Chapter 1
Halekulani Hotel, Oahu, Hawaii
Chapter 1
"From that glorious place, we’d sip on surprisingly strong maitais (regular ice, not crushed)and watch the sunset."
Russell and Alex at House Without a Key - Chapter 1
Halekulani Hotel, Waikiki, Oahu, Hawaii
Chapter 1
"This wasn’t the hip-rattle-roll stuff you get at the tourist luaus either. This was graceful hula, accompanied by ukulele, steel guitar, slack key, and lilting falsetto vocals unique to traditional Hawaiian music."
Russell and Alex watching Kanoe Miller and band perform the hula - Chapter 1
House Without a Key, Halekulani Hotel, Oahu, Hawaii
Chapter 1
"Afterwards we’d grab a bite at House Without a Key, the hotel’s outdoor gathering place immortalized by the Charlie Chan novel of the same name."
Outdoor dining at House Without a Key - Chapter 1
Oahu, Hawaii
Chapter 3
"By tonight I could be having a rum-soaked mai tai in the glorious pinkness of the Royal Hawaiian hotel..."
Russell's wishing - Chapter 3
On the beach in front of the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, Waikiki, Hawaii
Chapter 3
"Nutana Cemetery, also known as Pioneer Cemetery, is located where Ruth Street ends at St. Henry Avenue. It’s a narrow rectangular plot along the west bank of the South Saskatchewan River, right before it leaves city limits."
Russell's first clue on the treasure hunt - Chapter 3
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
Chapter 3
"At the base of an impressive cenotaph that had obviously been constructed long after Margaret’s death, was a square of marble."
Searching the cemetary - Chapter 3
Nutana Cemetary, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
Chapter 3
"A few minutes later I pulled up next to a white, clapboard, two-storey house on a heavily treed street, just a block up from the river."
Arriving at the Marr Residence - Chapter 3
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
Chapter 3
"A white picket fence surrounded the large yard, half of which was given over to a pleasantly landscaped garden. I knew this because a sign on the lawn announced “Marr Garden”. Another sign on a gate beneath a graceful, arched arbor said “Welcome”."
Russell is stymied in the Marr Garden - Chapter 3
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
Chapter 3
"At one end of the yard were two benches. One was occupied by an elderly woman who’d obviously had the same idea I did."
Russell seeks help in the Marr Garden - Chapter 3
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
Chapter 4
"As the woman from the Marr Residence had told me, Trounce House was indeed teeny, weeny and brown. I didn’t know if it was all that cute though. It looked like any other old garage or storage shed that needed a major overhaul."
Finding Trounce House - Chapter 4
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
Chapter 4
"I wondered how many people walked down this nondescript back alley just to see the oldest structure in Saskatoon?"
Finding Trounce House - Chapter 4
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
Chapter 4
"It might have been a window at one point, but now it was a door, made of the same dog-brown clapboard. That had to be it: the door too high. I’d found it."
Solving a clue? - Chapter 4
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
Chapter 4
"I judged the distance from fence line to house to be about five feet. I’m not the greatest at estimating distances, but it didn’t matter anyway. All that mattered was whether or not I thought I could leap from the top of the fence onto the roof."
Russell on the hunt for a clue - Chapter 4
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
Chapter 6
"And there, just past the desk, beneath a red-flame-in-a-torch-holder logo, were walls and walls of framed, black and white photographs. As I approached the large display, I saw that the pictures were divided into three categories: athletes, teams, and builders."
Russell looking for a lily at the Saskatoon Sports Hall of Fame - Chapter 6
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
Chapter 6
"There were twenty, maybe thirty men, sitting on fold out chairs placed in a semi-circle on the lawn in front of the San. They were an orchestra, playing for the gravely ill, who watched from their bedroom windows and balconies. It reminded me of the scene from Titanic, where musicians played for the doomed, an offering of beauty to the ill-fated."
Old photo of the San site - Chapter 6
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
Chapter 6
"She could have stepped right off the pages of The Great Gatsby, with her ironed hair, puckered lips and perfect complexion. Ethel stared into the camera as if daring the viewer to deny her loveliness. After a tumultuous life of great highs and lows, this is where she’d ended up; as a photo on a wall."
Finding Ethel Catherwood - Chapter 6
Saskatoon Sports Hall of Fame, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
Chapter 6
"A sign near the entrance displayed an eerie black and white photograph of the massive sanatorium. A brief written account next to the picture told of the thousands who had died here during the epidemic. I shuddered."
Russell enters the San site - Chapter 6
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
Chapter 6
"At the centre of the loop was a solitary tree. It was perhaps the tallest spruce on the entire site."
Russell considers a clue - Chapter 6
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
Chapter 8
"For the second time that afternoon, I purchased a movie ticket. This time for the first showing of a second run movie at the Roxy. A few blocks on the wrong side of Idylwyld Drive, the old movie house is an interesting place."
Treasure hunting at the Roxy Theatre - Chapter 8
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
Chapter 8
"Built just before the depression years, the theatre is famous for its unique and fanciful interior, reminiscent of a Spanish Village."
Inside the Roxy Theatre - Chapter 8
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
Chapter 8
"Within a golden urn
Treasure you will find."
On the treasure hunt - Chapter 8
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
Chapter 15
"Conveniently, the southeast corner he’d set for our rendezvous point, was just up ahead and slightly to the right of the ramp."
Meeting an informant - Chapter 15
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
Chapter 15
"Over the edge, to my right, I could see the bright white and blue lights of the twelve screen Galaxy cinema, and up ahead the cheery, neon, palm-tree-shaped sign of the downtrodden Capri Hotel."
Waiting for informant - Chapter 15
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
Chapter 16
"I sipped my drink and gazed at the water, even though the sky was dark, and I could barely make out where sand met ocean."
Russell in Waikiki - Chapter 16
Oahu, Hawaii
