Nom canonique: Fradkin, Barbara
Date de naissance: 1947
Sexe: female
Nationalité: Canada
Lieux de résidence: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Montréal, Québec, Canada
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Études: McGill University (BA)
University of Toronto (MA)
University of Ottawa (PhD, Clinical Psychology)
Professions: Child Psychologist (part time)
Organisations: Crime Writers of Canada (Past President)
Capital Crime Writers (Past President)
Sisters in Crime
Ladies Killing Circle
Courte biographie: Barbara Fradkin (nee Currie) was born in Montreal and obtained her B.A. at McGill University and M.A. at the University of Toronto, before moving to Ottawa to work and raise a family. A few years later she returned to the University of Ottawa for her PhD in clinical psychology, and has recently scaled back her full-time practice as a child psychologist in order to devote more time to her first passion, writing.

Although she first appeared in print only twelve years ago, Barbara has been writing since she was six and has always had an affinity for the dark side. Her work as a child psychologist provides ample insight and inspiration for murderous plots. An active member of Canada's writing community, she is the past president of Crime Writers of Canada and Capital Crime Writers, an Ottawa mystery writers' group, as well as contributing to Sisters in Crime She has three children, two dogs and a cat, and in whatever spare time she can find, she loves outdoor activities like travelling, skiing and kayaking, as well as reading, of course.

Membres

Critiques

Honour Among Men: An Inspector Green Mystery… par Barbara Fradkin

Inspector Green of the Ottawa Police Service is called to a homicide on Ottawa's Lebreton Flats which turns out to be a female killed by someone who is very strong. As he investigates, he soon learns of connections to the Canadian Armed Forces and specifically its Peace Keeping forces which were assigned to the Serbian/Croatian conflict.

When a young enthusiastic female detective from his command is brutally beaten in the military town of Petawawa, Green and his team put in a full effort to find the culprit. Included in the effort is an attractive female detective from Halifax. Behind the crimes is the soldiers' experiences in Serbia and Croatia and their commanding officers efforts to keep some of the those stories secret. Include an national election campaign in the mix and it is a very complicated plot that is only completely unraveled on the last page.

I will be looking forward to my next Inspector Green case.… (plus d'informations)

Signalé

lamour | 1 autre critique | Mar 29, 2024 |

Do or Die: An Inspector Green Mystery (An Inspector… par Barbara Fradkin

My first and likely Ottawa Police Inspector Mike Green murder mystery. I enjoyed the first half of the story about a murder that takes place in the main library at the University of Ottawa. The murder victim is Jonathan Blair, a student working with a Professor of neuropsychology on mapping language points in the human brain. Supposedly he’s murdered because of his involvement in verifying the research data and discovering a fraud.
Lots of possible villains to check on so Green and Brian Sullivan chase down many suspects and finally in the last two chapters discover that it’s not the one they’ve been chasing but another student they never suspected.
I didn’t like the ending as I found it to be too convenient to tie things up after all of the interviews to which we were witness.… (plus d'informations)

Signalé

MaggieFlo | 6 autres critiques | Apr 10, 2023 |

Wreck Bay: An Amanda Doucette Mystery (An Amanda… par Barbara Fradkin

Wreck Bay is the fifth time out with former aide worker Amanda Doucette who began trauma counseling after surviving a deadly massacre in Nigeria. The story begins with her checking out the sites and amenities for outdoor adventure for a planned father-son counseling excursion. This takes her to coastal British Columbia and remote islands. She meets a fellow trauma survivor there named Luke, a man who has lived there since the Seventies when he came presumably to dodge the draft.

But there is more to his story and when Amanda and her guide find the body of a stranger, the police are certain Luke is involved. Indeed, the more we learn about the stranger and Luke’s lives, the more likely his involvement seems. When the victim’s sister shows up, looking for vengeance, things really begin to heat up.

Wreck Bay was alternately disappointing and infuriating. As someone with years of experience in nonprofits, the nonchalant harum-scarum approach to planning the adventure struck me as bizarre and feckless. It seems Amanda creates new excursions from scratch which enabled the author, Barbara Fradkin, to take her all over the Canadian wilderness, but which is simply counterfactual to nonprofit experience.

A more significant failing in my eyes is the failure to follow what I think is one of the more important rules of detective fiction. Whether Ronald Knox’s ten rules or S.S. Van Dine’s twenty rules, Fradkin blatantly broke an incredibly important rule. This makes the mystery unfair and leaves readers too far in the dark. Of course, Amanda is in the dark as well, but that doesn’t make up for breaking a very important rule. If I told you which rule was broken, it would be a spoiler, but I cannot review this book without noting this. It is egregious.

Fradkin is an able writer. We can see what Amanda sees and experience the almost claustrophobic density of the forest and the wild freshness of the ocean. Her characters are also complex and interesting people. Where she falls down is in the resolution of the plot.

I received an e-gally of Wreck Bay from the publisher through NetGalley

Wreck Bay at Dundurn Press
Barbara Fradkin

https://tonstantweaderreviews.wordpress.com/2023/02/24/wreck-bay-by-barbara-frad...… (plus d'informations)

Signalé

Tonstant.Weader | 1 autre critique | Feb 24, 2023 |

Do or Die: An Inspector Green Mystery par Barbara Fradkin

A while ago I read and enjoyed the tenth instalment of this series and planned to seek out others. Finally I started with the first, but didn't enjoy this as much as I had hoped. The descriptions of the police investigation were excellent, and I imagine that if I had ever been to Ottawa, all the local colour would have been spot on. However all this was marred for me by the attitudes of various of the characters to women and particularly women as colleagues (or to be honest women as wives - neglect them, women as witnesses - lust after them and nearly sleep with them, or really women in any context). I assume this attitude changed as the series went on - this was published in 2000. I get that Green's attitude to his wife and baby is not held up as exemplary behaviour and you don't have to like the main character necessarily, but the undercurrent of misogyny and disrespect was so pervasive that I kept tripping over it.… (plus d'informations)

Signalé

pgchuis | 6 autres critiques | Sep 24, 2022 |

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