The Calling (Hardcover)

~ (Author)
Key Phrases: The Calling, Inger Ash Wolfe, Port Dundas (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. This bracingly original mystery from the pseudonymous Wolfe opens with the grisly slaying of an elderly cancer sufferer in Port Dundas, a remote Ontario town that has gone years without a homicide. The murder hits at a particularly tough time for 61-year-old Det. Insp. Hazel Micallef, who's struggling to come to terms with a surprise divorce and battles daily with her acerbic 87-year-old mother. A serious staff shortage and an injured back add to the department commander's woes. A second, even more disturbing killing raises the ante for Micallef, who's already doubtful she can solve the first case. As Micallef marshals her forces, Wolfe fans the already high suspense by cutting between them and their elusive quarry. With the body count climbing, the detective puts herself increasingly at risk in a desperate attempt to foil the grand, demented plan that the killer regards as a mission. Billed as a prominent North American literary novelist, Wolfe convincingly lays claim to a new mantle as a first-rate crime writer. (May)
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From Booklist

For police in the small town of Port Dundas, Ontario, the year’s most exciting event should have been the man driving his car through his ex-wife’s living-room window, not the murder of a terminally ill woman. Detective Inspector Hazel Micallef knows the victim—once her father’s mistress—and loves the town she serves. So this time it’s personal, and Micallef crosses lines in pursuing the religious zealot who is killing by invitation, then desecrating the bodies of his victims, across the breadth of Canada. At the same time, she has her own demons to deal with: excruciating back pain, the politics of the Ontario Police Services that keep her in an acting role after years of leading the department, a fondness for the bottle that led to her divorce, even the well-meant ministrations of her 87-year-old mother, the former town mayor. Relentless in trying to stop the deranged killer, Micallef inspires both loyalty and betrayal as the search reaches a frantic climax that is painfully close to home for her. This solid police procedural and its appealing cast make the pseudonymous Wolfe an author to watch. --Michele Leber

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Harcourt; 1 edition (May 5, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0151013470
• ISBN-13: 978-0151013470
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #403,056 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "It was a place where death was somehow equivalent to life.", May 2, 2008

By	Luan Gaines "luansos" (Dana Point, CA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Personal redemption comes in many disguises and never when expected. In this off-beat mystery that hides a powerful theme behind the distracting horrors of a serial killer. Rural Port Dundas, Ontario, is the setting for a number of obscure deaths, all unlinked until a cancer-riddled elderly victim comes to the attention of Detective Inspector Hazel Micallef, her small, understaffed force unprepared for a monster who has walked the streets of Point Dundas, leaving his evil stench behind. Of course, the killer does not think of himself as evil, merely assisting the final transition from life to death as his willing victims cooperate in their own dramas. What happens to these bodies afterwards defies the imagination, a bizarre ritual based on the murderer's obsessions. Traveling the countryside for his appointments with death, the "mercy" killer remains nearly invisible, leaving his gruesome corpses behind as a testament to the fleeting nature of life.

Only gradually does Micallef see a pattern emerging; with no real support from her superiors, Hazel patches together an investigative network, assembling the details of the atrocities of a misbegotten angel of death who continues to evade authorities. Hazel has more on her plate than this serial killer, bedeviled by agonizing pain in her lower back that may soon require surgery, a sprightly octogenarian mother who strictly organizes her sixty-one year old daughter's diet and brooks no challenges to her authority and the lingering sadness of a divorce after four decades of marriage. In spite her troubles, Hazel is content in her work, ensconced in the easy familiarity of a place she known all her life. As the investigation ratchets up with more dead bodies, so does the tension between the Detective Inspector and her quarry, although neither has yet named the enemy or considered how their worlds might collide. By its nature, their relationship is adversarial, although Hazel's reactions are far more predictable than the desiccated aberrations of the killer.

It is Hazel's unexpected journey through a problematic investigation that ultimately proves her mettle, her job threatened by mistakes made in the heat of the moment and a quest to wreak revenge on a man who has stolen one of the most precious people in her life. A complicated case becomes a struggle between good and evil, a reckoning with false pride and the mischief of ego: "You're pride masquerading as justice." With characters too complex to be easily defined, The Calling explores more than the obvious, Hazel finally face to face with her purest self, honed by extremity and purified by desperation. I find that I appreciate this novel far more after I have finished, aware that the building tension is not sustained until the final chapters, when all comes together in perfect symmetry. Luan Gaines/ 2008.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "He was a man on a merciful mission.", May 18, 2008

By	E. Bukowsky "booklover10" (NY United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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."

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Full of Errors, November 19, 2008

By	Vicki "Vicki" (Canada) - See all my reviews

Brilliant writing but so full of errors that I kept stopping to get mad. Wolfe is not Canadian or is a Canadian who lived in the U.S. for a very long time. She uses words Canadians don't ever use. (eg. Senior year and Sophomore year).

Her version of Canadian policing is straight out of a British novel; she doesn't seem to have done any research at all as to how Canadian police work (eg. Not PC but Constable). And some of her policing is just over the top, no matter what country you're in. Like when Sevigny pulls a gun on the woman who collects the mail in Port Hardy, grabs her and throws her around. And then he kicks down the door of the house! Without a warrant! Without assistance from the local authorities! And he takes the dead man's laptop!

Then he takes the laptop to the hotel's computer (which is Internet connected) and can't use it to access the internet? Try plugging the Ethernet cable into the back. It'll work just fine.
A cop says "Arterial and venous blood look different. The oxygen in venous blood makes it look redder. Arterial blood is darker." No! It's the other way around. Arterial blood carries the oxygen.

The feeling I get from this book is that it was tossed off by a very talented writer who couldn't be bothered to get her facts straight, and her editor didn't think it mattered either.