The characters from Susan Musgrave’s A Cargo of Orchids are back in this brilliantly engaging novel. Rainy, the Mexican-American woman, and Frenchy, the African-American, along with Musgrave’s narrator X have returned and convincingly insist their story is not done. Once inmates on death row, now reunited and hanging out at an old house in a BC outport, they create a grand new afterlife adventure because death was just too weak to contain them.
As we are shuttled along an energetic storyline in an old hearse, through gated communities in Vancouver to BC’s First Nations island outposts, we witness the transformation of lives on the slopes of purgatory. The passageways are rife with wild rides, social satire and visually hilarious encounters. Musgrave’s trademark undercurrents of lurking peril and unexpected havoc play out against murder, drug encounters, and sexual tension but Given is a novel with its own rules of engagement. Musgrave’s comic gifts and ability to transcend this earthly plane create a ghost story that becomes a masterful allegory for personal loss and the potency of love.
Of A Cargo of Orchids:
“Musgrave’s virtuoso lyricism invariably packs a sting within its lushness – a mordant irony, a bruised darkness.” — Maureen Garvie, — Quill & Quire
“Her prose is lucid, eloquent and poetic. The tone of the piece is alternately despairing, ironic, erotic and fearful; the pacing of the narrative is perfectly tuned to the tension of the subject matter.” —Calgary Straight
“A vivacious . . . compelling mélange of slapstick, dark humour and outlandish incident . . . Perhaps the novel's greatest pleasures are aesthetic.” — Globe & Mail
“Susan Musgrave's third novel alternates between brutal emotion and raw, dark humour . . . It's a beautiful, poetic book with a well-constructed plot and a conclusion with enough twists for a crime fiction novel.” — January Magazine “A Cargo of Orchids is wonderful fun; terrifying, unforgettable and sui generis.” — Bookworld
