A woman`s search for the truth leads her on a dangerous trail across Canada.
On behalf of a Swiss museum, a 33 years old historian, Sonja Werner, is assigned to travel across British Columbia. Officially, she is following the footsteps of the poet Else Seel who had married a trapper in 1927 and who had lived with him in a wilderness log cabin. But secretly Sonja is investigating the mysterious circumstances in which her husband had died after the crash of a seaplane three years earlier. What information do the police conceal from her? And why did her best friend vanish around the same time? Driven by grief and jealousy, Sonja embarks on a dangerous journey across Canada. With the clarity and finesse of an Anita Shreve, Bernadette Calonego narrates a young woman`s search for the truth.
Mystery novel published on April 14, 2015 by AmazonCrossing.(Available as paperback and e-book. )
Click here to read an excerpt.
Reviews
” The plot of this suspenseful tale twists and turns with every page.”
Coast Reporter, Sunshine Coast, B.C., Canada. Read the article here.
“Precise and understanding in the psychology of the characters – a cold little display of pyrotechnics in the ice-cold North.”
Tages-Anzeiger, Zurich
“Calonego wins over readers with thrilling and palatable writing.”
Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Zurich
“Tension to the very last page and a little surprise to finish off: a book like this is great fun.”
Neue Presse, Germany
“Imagine, Else Lübcke Seel, a poet from Berlin and daughter of a
former great landowner, travels to Canada in 1927. On only the second
day after her arrival in Vancouver, she marries a trapper and henceforth
lives with him in a log cabin in British Columbia`s wilderness. For
almost ten years, through her yearning for an intellectual soul mate,
she exchanges letters with the ostracized American poet Ezra Pond.
It is not surprising that Bernadette Calonego, a Vancouver-based foreign
correspondent for German, Swiss and Austrian newspapers, could not
resist this theme.
In her second novel “Unter dunklen Wassern” (Verlag Bloomsbury Berlin),
she transforms the real-life-material into a thriller with a fictitious
modern heroine: A Swiss historian named Sonja Werner travels in the
footsteps of Else Seel in Western and Northern Canada. But secretly, the
heroine wants to find out why her own husband had died in a floatplane
crash near Prince Rupert three years before. She is also curious as to
why her best friend Odette had vanished that time.
The adventurous and dangerous search takes the heroine to such authentic
places as Vancouver, Haida Gwaii and a camp of prospectors digging for
diamonds in the Arctic.”
Süddeutsche Zeitung, Munich
“The gripping plot is written convincingly and the wild setting of the Canadian wilderness breathtakingly beautiful. An absolute page-turner, enthralling until the last page.”
Aviva-Berlin.de, The OnlineMagazine for Women
“The contrast between the sheltered life in Europe and the isolated forests serves as the platform for the scheming of international companies that, for once, are not chasing oil but diamonds.”
Der Standard, Vienna
“Calonego merges elegantly the fate of a real historical person with a fictional character`s search for truth.”
Blick, Zurich
“Bernadette Calonego has written a crime novel of extraordinary global bearing.”
online-quer.ch, Switzerland
“The harsh weather in the Canadian wilderness plays the star role in this novel.”
Schweizer Illustrierte, Zurich
“A tale from the wild North, from the hunt for diamonds that lets us feel the vastness and wide open spaces of this nation.”
Neue Schwyzer Zeitung, Switzerland
“A racy blend of trapper romance, self-discovery and classic crime novel – inspired by Bernadette Calonego`s real-life experiences in the Canadian wilderness.”
Annabelle magazine, Zurich
“In a thrilling showdown, all the threads and narrative levels come together.”
Content TV book review, Berlin