Wow!
Gasping for breath as I galloped to the finish...a thrilling read, dark and twisted and based in interesting research.
Wonderful tale with a merging of past wrongs and present ones, woven into each other with an overwhelming feeling of cold. The locations are Arctic and Northern Ontario, but even considering that, Blunt managed to make me feel cold even on a bright fall day. He invests every page with a chill, psychological or physical. I love it when a writer can put me so in situ that I actually feel the weather.
Blunt writes dark mysteries. There hasn't been a one that I've read hat hasn't made me check the door locks when I go to bed at night. That said, some reviewers below seem surprised about the sex in this novel, the depravities, etc.
For me, they were secondary, but added a depth to Delorme's character - a background that is based on more than her affection for Cardinal. I am intrigued, a bit repelled, and eagerly awaiting developments. Cardinal has the shadow of his wife; she needs shadows for balance and as a woman in my 50's, I know that there are parts of my personality that I am only identifying now as I pick away at the stories I've told myself for years. Some aren't that great. I have some apologizing to do. So it doesn't seem a stretch for me that Delorme finds things in herself that she didn't recognize before. It makes her more interesting as a character.
I am a bit tired of the dropped in big mouth incompetent cop meme - it's everywhere as no doubt they truly are. Bureaucracies. But it's getting tired and I'd like to see a more creative twist.
Non-mainstream sexuality figures in the novel, so if this bothers you, you may wish to avoid. For me, I was too tied up in the story to really notice it.
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Taking the dog for his after dinner walk tonight brought home to me the horrific nature of the murders in this book. Environment Canada says the temperature is -18 degrees C (or 0 degrees F) but with the wind it feels like -24 degrees C (or -11 degrees F) right now so it is not even as cold as temperatures dropped in the book. I was dressed in a down parka, neck warmer, toque, scarf and down mitts and we were moving smartly. We were only out for 15 minutes so my experience pales in comparison. But it did give me a feel for how exposure to the elements can quickly become dangerous.

The detectives on the Algonquin Bay Police Force all get called out on a chilly early morning to a motel on the edge of town. A man's body has been found in the parking lot and it is soon determined that he and a woman not his wife were the occupants of one of the rooms. The woman has disappeared. This could be a case of an outraged husband murdering his wife's lover and abducting his wife but Detective John Cardinal doesn't get that vibe from him. Detective Lise Delorme is outraged that the murder investigation is being headed up by a new detective on the force and not herself. She forms her own hypothesis that a local club owner might be responsible. Leonard Priest had a relationship with the missing woman and Delorme is sure that he was responsible for another woman's death although his employee confessed to that murder. She starts pursuing that angle which leads her to discovering the body of a Senator's wife in a remote location. The Senator's wife had been placed in an abandoned resort deep in the woods, confined by manacles and chains, given a thermos and some food and left to die of hypothermia. Cardinal is put in charge of investigating that crime and he wants Delorme to assist him but she has other avenues to search. Interspersed with the details of these police investigations are excerpts from a diary called The Blue Notebook which have to do with a scientific research station on a drifting ice flow in the Arctic Ocean. It's not clear what this diary has to do with the present day story at first; of course that is cleared up in the denoument of the book. Long time fans of the Cardinal/Delorme team will be interested to follow how their relationship progresses in this novel. (I refuse to say more.)

This is the last Cardinal/Delorme mystery written by Giles Blunt. I'm sad to have to say goodbye to this crime fighting duo and their life in semi-northern Ontario. CTV says Season 4 of "Cardinal" will start soon and I presume it will be based on this book. I'll be interested to see how they handle some of the more risque scenes. ( )

More vulgar than the last one. Coarse and rude. Won't be reading any more. ( )

This is a decent murder mystery with John Cardinal leading the investigation in Algonquin Bay with his sidekick Lise Delorme. The story is one of revenge between the past and the present. The past takes place on Axel Heiburg, a floating iceberg near Ellesmere Island where several scientists are doing environmental experiments. The murders in the present day are the result of serious neglect on the part of a team of engineers. Good story for a cold winter day. ( )

Until the Night is the latest entry in Giles Blunt's exceptional series featuring North Bay police officers, John Cardinal and Lisa Delorme. The story moves back and forth between an Arctic research station and a case which begins with the discovery of a woman's body in an abandoned building in the woods. The woman had been dressed for the cold weather, then chained to prevent escape. Blunt slowly reveals how the two stories are related, building the tension to a perfect pitch. ( )