Everyone loves a good mystery.
John Degen — whose first go at the mystery genre, Seldom Seen Road, hits bookshops on May 7 — certainly does. A lifelong reader, he was a fan at a young age.
“I love to read everything in every genre,” he says, “but I was hooked on Sherlock Holmes very early. The crime-solver, mystery, thriller alcoves of literature are favourite spaces for me. I remember completely nerding out in London one time when I stumbled upon the blue plaque marking Agatha Christie’s coach house. I am that level of murder mystery fan.”
Degen pitched the manuscript for Seldom Seen Road to his publisher at Latitude 46 as “a book defining middle-ground between the cozy sophistication of Louise Penny’s Gamache series (the guy is always eating a French pastry) and the creepy violence of Giles Blunt’s Cardinal series. I think I’ve pulled that off, and I pay homage to those who came before.”
That shows, too, in many of the snappy sentences that pop off the page of this novel, like this one from a scene in a roadside diner: Yvonne’s voice was climbing the back of his neck like it had claws.
Stephen King would approve.
Seldom Seen Road is the first in the Burnt Mystery series of murder mysteries featuring the Roth family detective trio: Mark, a retired musician, who is grieving the death of his beloved wife and, like many recently retired folks, also happens to be a busybody, his daughter Stephanie (an academic and budding criminologist), and his cousin Jeremy, a police constable.
When the body of one of Burnt River’s more vocal environmental activists is found dead on the shoreline under suspicious circumstances, the whole community is abuzz. Particularly the Roth family. Mark, especially, gets to poking and snooping around; talking, listening to townsfolk; watching people. Bit by bit, he begins piecing together pieces of the puzzle, and suspects abound.
And that’s when, as they say, things get really interesting.
The novel takes place in the small Northern Ontario town of Burnt River. If you’ve been up north, you’ll know that there is something about Northern Ontario — the endless woodlands, lonely highways, vast lakes, remote communities — that truly does lend itself as the perfect backdrop to a good crime thriller.
John Degen — who now lives and works in Thessalon, Ontario — says this setting is at the heart of the Burnt Mystery series.
“I’m a huge fan of Nordic Noir,” he explains, “but it has always bothered me just a little bit that Scandinavia has such a stranglehold (pun intended) on creepy, snow-covered landscapes lending their dark depth to the mystery. I was in Iceland on business a few years back. Walking through a Reykjavik park in the gloom of evening, I turned a corner and was startled half to death by the creepiest little snowman I’d ever seen.
“’Game on!’ I thought. ‘You think you’re creepy, Iceland? Well, get a load of Northern Ontario. Because we also have bears.’”
And eels, too, I will add. Burnt River is chock-a-block with creepy, bloodsucking eels. They make an appearance fairly early in the novel.
107 pages in, I can tell you: Northern Ontario itself is a thoroughly intriguing character. As peaceful and idyllic as it often is, there lies the potential for danger at every turn. In Degen’s skilled narrative, Burnt River as a backdrop is a powder keg.
At the core of every good murder mystery, too, is its characters. Degen knows this well. That’s one reason he has a family trio playing detectives in Seldom Seen Road.
“Not everyone solves murders, but most people have an experience of family dynamics,” he says. “The family element was there from the very beginning for me. Maybe because I’ve often wondered about it when reading crime and detective work. Sherlock Holmes has a troublingly brilliant brother. Kurt Wallander has a very complicated relationship with his father.
“These dynamics are usually employed to fill out character, but I wondered how they might actually advance plot. And there’s great flexibility to the arrangement. Stephanie’s growing scholarly reputation can take her all over the world. I plan to have her helping solve small-town Canadian crimes from all sorts of exotic locales.”
He was also conscious of starting a (hopefully) long-running mystery series with an older detective.
“That’s been a serious problem for other crime writers who find they have to magically stop the aging process after a few books,” he says. “But Mark Roth has the luxury of aging naturally, because Stephanie is perfectly capable of solving murders on her own if necessary.”
In Seldom Seen Road, this works handsomely because Mark, Stephanie, and Jeremy all have their quirks, charms, and richly engaging backstories. They’re likeable. Particularly our main busybody, a man who goes fishing without ever catching a fish.
“I know several Mark Roths. I may be a Mark Roth myself,” says Degen. “Who doesn’t want to stick their nose where it doesn’t belong sometimes?”
“What charms me about my non-detective is that he’s very aware of his own faults and limitations. He’s driven to his meddling by loneliness and loss; not arrogance… I hope readers find the comedy in Mark, for sure; but mostly I hope they relate to his humanity.”
“Human Authored”
When Seldom Seen Road hits bookshops in May, readers will find an interesting label on its back jacket reading: “Human Authored.” This might be a first for a book published in Canada. It’s timely, and noteworthy. Degen, who is also the president of The Writers’ Union of Canada, says that it is unfortunately necessary.
In short, he explains why: “With the advancement of Generative AI in the market, we’ve seen lots of fake and instant books popping up online… I mean, it takes years to write and publish a book, but AI can generate something resembling a book in a few minutes. It’s not a fair fight.”
So, he says, writers are being proactive.
“The Human Authored label on my book requires a legal declaration on my part that I wrote the book and I’m human. The consumer knows when they buy it, it’s the genuine article and not a scam.”
Bottom line? “Some authors want to experiment with AI prompts. I do not,” Degen says. “Why bother being a writer if you’re not doing the actual writing? And as a reader, I can’t see the use of AI as anything but dishonesty.”
Seldom Seen Road is proof that a real human writer’s hard work can pay off in a hell of a good yarn. One I highly recommend, and — excuse me — must now hungrily dive back into.