By Lisa Biehle Files
During these long days at home, what could be better than cuddling up with a good book that’s not only a murder mystery but also a canter through the rare subculture of birding? Or what about a whole series of six books?
In 2013, Canadian Steve Burrows’ book “A Siege of Bitterns” won the Arthur Ellis Award for best first novel. He followed up with nearly a book a year, all birder murder mysteries, titled with the poetic collective noun for each flock:
2015 A Pitying of Doves
2016 A Cast of Falcons
2017 A Shimmer of Hummingbirds
2018 A Tiding of Magpies
2018 A Dance of Cranes
In “A Siege of Bitterns,” Detective Chief Inspector Domenic Jejeune, is highly intelligent, observant, and has strong instincts, all qualities that have given him fame, despite his youth, at solving crimes in London, UK. But his greatest passion is birding, to the dismay of his journalist girlfriend, Lindy.
At one point they have this exchange:
“Lindy shifted impatiently. ‘I do try, honestly Dom, but I just don’t get it. We could go for a nice walk along the beach together, get all the fresh air you like and see just as many birds. But just standing here, watching. I mean, it’s like fishing, without the excitement.’
“But there was excitement. Could she not feel it, the pent up energy surging through the stillness? It was, Jejeune knew, the train of the hunter, the waiting, the stalking. Not now to strike with a bow, or a gun, but just watching, waiting for a flicker, a shimmer of movement in the tranquility of the landscape.”
Jejeune’s patience and observation with birding translate well to solving crimes, though he finds untold pleasure in watching avian life rather than analyzing human deceit, death, and destruction.
Jejeune’s newest assignment in the countryside of north Norfolk (UK) just happens to be the locale for one of the best birding areas in the world, with coastline, inland marshes, grasslands, and a high concentration of active birders.
A famous environmental activist named Cameron Bae has been found hung from his own willow tree. Bae had been in a race with other dedicated birders to identify 400 bird species, a lifetime list. He had found 394, just a smidge ahead of others. Had a competitor brought him down?
As various bird species are mentioned throughout the book, it’s fun to Google images and imagine each bird in the Norfolk salt marsh ecology.
Dialogue is witty and descriptions can be arresting, such as: “Domenic Jejeune drove without haste beneath a sky the colour of sorrow.” Or, “He was leaning forward, hands on knees, his wet clothing clinging to him like guilt.”
Burrows takes us into a complicated story about the wetlands, bringing together diverse people from academia, media, business, politics, and of course, Earth Front, an environmental group probably based on Greenpeace.
Throughout the book, the birds Jejeune notices either reflect or are integrated into the storyline. For instance, while interviewing the sweet ex-wife of the murder victim, a charm of goldfinches lands on the native bushes in her garden, reinforcing her innocence.
A local businessman is murdered, possibly in retaliation for Bae’s death, and a local criminal’s greenhouse is firebombed, making Jejeune’s task even more difficult. Thankfully, he has a crew of likeable and capable underlings.
His right hand, Sergeant Danny Maik, even comments on the complex social structure of Rooks—birds that settle in the branches of their roost based on social hierarchy. He says aloud, “I wonder what that must be like,” as if he doesn’t already know.
Throughout the novel, there is an appreciation for nature and the impact of human development on this unique marshland ecosystem. In one scene, Jejeune walks to the place where the ocean saltwater merges with freshwater:
“He traced the creek’s sinuous course back to where it emerged from the tidal salt flat, and watched the water for a long time as it eddied and churned, meeting the incoming tide in an erotic swirl of water, the fresh intermingling with the salty in a turbulent, roiling dance, until it was no longer possible to tell one from the other.
“He looked out to sea, at the motion, the colour, the light. A Black-headed Gull swooped in and settled on a piece of driftwood a few feet away. Picture complete, thought JeJeune. For him, a landscape by itself, no matter how beautiful, seemed an empty thing. It needed a flicker of life, a tiny quiver of existence, to validate it, to confirm that other living things found a home here, too.
“Side by side, they looked out over the sea, the man and the bird, two beating hearts in this otherwise empty landscape, with no connection beyond their desire to be here, at this time. . . . The gull stayed for a long moment, allowing Jejeune to rest his eyes softly, unthreateningly, upon it. And then, as if deciding it had allowed him enough time to appreciate its beauty, the bird spread its wings and effortlessly lifted off, wheeling on the invisible air currents, drifting away over the sea toward the horizon.”