Paul Nicholas Mason: To Our Graves

St. Cuthbert’s College School, a bastion of privilege and achievement in Bath, Ontario. Now, a place of murder, as a 12th-grade student is found stabbed to death in the chapel.

The school Chaplain Luke Nash who discovered the body immediately informed the Headmaster. The police are called and a process is quickly pulled together to manage the students and the day.

DS Diane Stewart of the Kingston police is leading the case along with help from DS Callum Brezicki of the Ontario Provincial Police. They create a solid working relationship, and while quite different, they are singularly focused on solving the murder.

What follows is a double procedural of sorts. The police have their methods well known to crime fiction readers and the private school, well they have theirs that some of us may not be familiar with.

It’s the procedure of the routine and backdrop of the schools heavily structured days. Paul Nicholas Mason clearly sets a place, and a time for this novel.

While To Our Graves has an unnecessarily large cast of characters, I sense the authors resolve, or perhaps confidence to explore the personalities of the line-up he has created.

Mason gives us insights into the snippets of their lives. Some of course are the proverbial red herrings, but they do set a tone of possibilities for the story.

There is also an impish sense of humour underlying areas of the book that I quite enjoyed. Overall, the pace is well executed and reads smoothly.

What does a Ouija board and vampires have to do with anything? Only one way to find out.