Inger Ash Wolfe's "The Calling" is a departure from the standard serial killer novel. The heroine is a few years shy of being a senior citizen. She is sixty-one year old Detective Inspector Hazel Micallef, who polices the small Ontario town where she was born, Port Dundas in Westmuir County. Hazel is a real piece of work: She is divorced from Andrew Pedersen after a marriage of thirty-six years and she is not particularly close to her two grown daughters. Because of the excruciating pain brought on by her bad back, she has become dependent on painkillers and alcohol. Of an evening, she will pop a Percocet washed down with a small glass of Bushmills whiskey. Hazel lives with "a force of nature," her eighty-seven year old mother, Emily, the town's former mayor. Emily plays poker with her friends, tries to control Hazel's diet (a typical breakfast is a flavorless egg-white omelet, sprouted whole-grain flax, and high-fiber toast), and is just plain bossy.
Most of the time, Hazel is not called upon to do any serious detective work. After all, her patch is a sleepy little place where nothing much ever happens. She is serving as interim commander because Gord Drury, the former boss, retired and was never replaced. Ian Mason, the head of the Central Division of the Ontario Police Services, "is the worst kind of police bureaucrat: capricious and jolly about it." He would like nothing better than to eliminate the Port Dundas detachment as a cost-cutting move.
Everything changes when a cancer-ridden woman named Delia Chandler is found murdered and mutilated. Her mouth is "rent open in a silent cry." The crime scene is bizarre, with no sign of forced entry. It seems that Delia had welcomed the killer into her home and allowed him to do as he wished. Hazel and her team, including Detective Sergeant Ray Greene, Detective Howard Spere, Detective Constable James Wingate, and Detective Sergeant Adjutor Sevigny, are on the trail of a most unusual criminal who is both clever and methodical. Adding to their troubles, the police must cope with an impatient press and panicked townspeople who are demanding quick results. When evidence turns up indicating that a serial killer who targets the terminally ill is on the loose, Hazel fears that may be in way over her head. In her desperation to solve the case, she ignores standard procedure, conducting her investigation (some of which falls outside her jurisdiction) on her own and in secret, and withholding vital information from the public. She believes that this case may make her career or destroy it.
Wolfe uses the third person omniscient narrator to tell the story, primarily from Harriet's viewpoint. In addition, she provides a glimpse into the mind of the killer, who calls himself Simon. He is "a phantom in a dark coat" who seems to be a religious fanatic. His twisted agenda impels him to travel across Canada, visiting his victims at their invitation and then dispatching them to the hereafter. The author develops her suspenseful plot with great care. Her descriptive writing is superb; she expertly contrasts the bucolic setting with Simon's disturbing acts of violence.
The characters are beautifully delineated. Hazel is a formidable but flawed woman with a dry sense of humor. She is a technophobe who hates cell phones and computers, but is also a savvy investigator who uses whatever tools are needed (both people and computers, as it turns out) to find the perpetrator. Greene, Harriet's deputy, has always been loyal to her, but as time passes, he becomes uncomfortable with her unorthodox "buffet style policing." Detective Constable Wingate has great instincts; he offers valuable insight and a mature perspective that is unusual in someone so young. Simon is a bizarre villain who does not fit the usual stereotypes. He is careful, extremely organized, and highly intelligent. "His touchstones were patience and preparation." But who is he really? Is he a psychotic angel of death, a mercy killer, or a combination of both? What exactly is his agenda and can Harriet arrest him before he completes his "mission" and disappears forever? As it turns out, nothing is simple in "The Calling." Inger Ash Wolfe has written an original and nightmarish police procedural that demonstrates just how difficult and frustrating detective work can be. As Hazel says so eloquently, "Nothing, not even a life in law enforcement, could prepare you for the wild imaginings some people, in their passionate madness, could unleash."
