The Darkening Archipelago

ISBN 13: 978-1-897126-63-9
336 pages, paperback
March 2010

Environmental | Mystery |
Cole Blackwater Mystery Series

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about the book

Eight months after his own brush with death over Alberta’s Cardinal Divide, Cole Blackwater has learned that his good friend and former client Archie Ravenwing is presumed dead on the waters of British Columbia’s Broughton Archipelago. Days before his disappearance, Ravenwing was on the brink of unravelling a corporate conspiracy surrounding an outbreak of sea lice that could decimate wild salmon along the BC coastline.

While Cole and newspaper reporter Nancy Webber search for answers, Cole is haunted by the dark secret surrounding his own father’s mysterious death. For Nancy Webber, whose long-forgotten feelings for Cole have risen to the surface again, getting to the bottom of Cole’s family history becomes both a professional and personal obsession.

The Darkening Archipelago, the second book of the Cole Blackwater series, is a race to keep both human souls and wild ecosystems from falling into darkness.

Download a sample from the book here

audio

Stephen Legault discusses the Cole Blackwater series

Stephen Legault discusses The Darkening Archipelago with Jo-Ann Roberts on CBC Radio's All Points West (March 9, 2010)  

reviews for The Cardinal Divide

"The Cardinal Divide is a page-turner of a mystery and an interesting work of pulp fiction ... with serious environmental issues at its heart."
—Canadian Literature

"A rough-edged environmentalist morphs into a hard-boiled private investigator in Stephen Legault's unique first novel, which somehow bridges the gap between environmental impact study and murder mystery—no mean feat!"
—Ben Gadd, author of Handbook of the Canadian Rockies and Raven's End, winner of the Canadian Rockies Award at the 2001 Banff Mountain Book Festival

“A gripping murder mystery, and a gritty exposé of the conflict between conservation and business in small-town Alberta. Legault paints a sharp, memorable portrait of the eastern slope region and its people.”
—Thomas Wharton, author of Icefields, winner of the 1996 Commonwealth Writer’s Prize for Best First Book

reviews for The Darkening Archipelago

"Raymond Chandler gave us Philip Marlowe, a world-weary investigator who solved murders with a quip and an eye for detail. Stephen Legault gives us Cole Blackwater, a hardboiled environmental investigator with a dark past and a fast right hook.... Like Chandler, Legault tells a story that is fast-paced and rich, revealing just enough to keep our eye following the ball under the cup." —Mayana C. Slobodian, Monday Magazine (Victoria, B.C.)

"An exciting read.... His stories reveal true human conflict and emotion, and portray characters with varied opinions about current issues, such as how a town with no economy might look at salmon farming as an opportunity. Legault has no shortage of characters or ideas." —Steve Carey, Victoria Times-Colonist

links

>> Cole Blackwater blog

>> The Calgary Herald interviews Stephen Legault about The Darkening Archipelago