Juby weaves her passion for social issues into plots and characters
Helen’s employers, Mr. Benedict Levine and his wife, are also practicing Buddhists. Their son David is stepping in as the director of Close Encounters for Global Healing, and when he calls to ask for their help, they are only too willing. Attendees of Close Encounters hold vastly disparate opinions on both societal and political topics and in bringing them together, the goal of the weeklong contemplative retreat is to nurture understanding and acceptance of each other. The optimal result is to investigate the root of each of their beliefs. A graduate himself, David agrees but he needs his father to stand in as a “token rich person” and Levine takes on the assignment with gusto, ready to act as a wealthy, multi-auto dealership owner, Scooter Bruin. We learn that Levine is not just wealthy, he is a multi-billionaire, and also that David is so uncomfortable with the trappings and connotations of this privilege, that he legally disassociated himself from his parents by changing his name to Lewiston and “donates every penny of his trust and is working on ways to divest any forbearers of their share.”
The attentive, ever-present Helen is known for her calm, but this is severely tested when Mrs. Levine, uncomfortable with her husband going to the retreat alone, asks Helen to attend. In doing so, Helen will need to forgo her much needed holiday—a horse camp with her beloved mare, Honey, and visiting with her butler friends, Gavin and Murray—to accompany Levine to the program, held on a small island off British Columbia’s West Coast.
David discovers that a replacement chef has been installed and Bobbi-Lyn, a chain smoking, rough-around-the-edges woman in her 60s, is a seemingly unfortunate replacement. She doesn’t understand the meaning of vegetarianism, let alone those who choose a vegan lifestyle, and when asked why there is meat stock in the vegetarian stew, she replies, “Makes it taste better. There’s no cows in it.” But as the plot unfolds, we understand Bobbi-Lyn’s attendance is deliberate, and she plays an important role.
Things begin to unravel as other staff members are absent and Helen is called upon to act as the “spiritual person, who offered counselling support to participants.” Helen’s calm wavers and her mindfulness training is put to the test. But when David announces that their three housekeepers will also be no-shows, “Helen felt her disappointment lift and her resistance fall away. “Yes, I will act as a spiritual advisor for the course. And will you allow me to make a phone call? I may have an idea that will help with … everything.”” Helen calls upon her two steadfast friends Murray and Gavin, and Nigel, a recent graduate of Butler School, who is a somewhat bumbling but lovable ally
Juby introduces the attendees in their own voices, enabling the reader to get to know them and their foibles. Though this reader may disagree with the characters’ principles and actions, I was immediately invested in a successful outcome for them all. The attendees include: a man who had been a major player in the Canadian trucker movement; an environmental activist, whose crusade had so embittered her, she was planning violent action; a hapless, almost accidental member of a neo-Nazi group; an 18-year-old accused of online harassment and has no respect for anyone, including himself; and a self-absorbed social influencer / consumer who is dissociated from the real world.
It quickly becomes apparent that each participant has come with their own agenda and as the tension builds amongst the participants, Helen knows it will take all her skills to attain order. But when she is unable to find Mr. Levine and David one morning, her phone vibrates with the worst possible news, “—Helen, I don’t want to alarm you, but it appears that we have been kidnapped.” Then the next message lights up her screen. “—Dad, we have definitely been kidnapped. Please just give Helen the instructions.”
Once again, Juby seamlessly weaves her passion for current social issues into the plot and character motivations. She describes herself as “an unskilled but earnest practitioner of Buddhism,” and this knowledge is delightfully imbued into her characters and settings. Readers will appreciate the slow drip of tension in Contemplation of a Crime, as the mystery builds, and satisfyingly, the hints of a typical whodunnit are nowhere to be found.
Susan Juby’s novels have been awarded many prizes and honours. Republic of Dirt won the Leacock Medal for Humour and The Woefield Poultry Collective was a Leacock nominee. The Fashion Committee was a Horn Book Best Book of the Year and The Truth Commission was named a best book of the year by Barnes and Noble, the Globe and Mail, and Kirkus, and it was the winner of the Sheila A. Egoff Award for Children’s Literature and the Amy Mathers Teen Book Award. Her first book, Alice, I Think, was a national bestseller and it was adapted into a TV series on CTV. Her memoir about her struggles with teenaged addiction, Nice Recovery, was a Globe and Mail best book of the year. Susan lives on Vancouver Island, where she teaches creative writing at Vancouver Island University.
Juby appears in All Hallows Eve: Murder and Mayhem With Laugh Out LIVE! on Oct. 31 and teaches Create Your (Crime) Fighter on Nov. 1. Tickets go on sale Sept. 10.
Review is by Libby McKeever. She is a retired youth librarian who is an avid reader and writer of both fiction and creative non-fiction. A Juby devotee, these Helen Thorpe novels have not only entertained but made McKeever contemplate the tenets of Buddhism in light of our current global social and political climate.