Hands Like Clouds: An Elias McCann Mystery - Tapa blanda

When environmental warrior Ira Connaught turns up hanging by the neck from an ancient rainforest cedar overlooking the wasteland of a clear-cut on Clayoquot Sound, everyone seems content to declare his death a suicide. The tree spiker won't be missed by loggers, Tofino's RCMP detachment, or by many environmentalists who applauded his goals but condemned his tactics.

For reluctant community coroner Elias McCann, Ira's death looks increasingly like a murder. Elias is no forensic pathologist, no doctor. A quirk in BC law enables anyone of good community standing to be appointed local coroner. But RCMP Sergeant Gary Danchuk does not believe that Elias meets even the quirk in the law. Danchuk remains convinced - against all evidence - that McCann murdered his wife, Merriam, two years earlier in order to clear the way for his love affair with Vhanna Chan.

Hands Like Clouds is the first in a series of mysteries revolving around the troubled life of Elias McCann, son of a remittance man and local coroner.

Mark Zuehlke lives and writes on Vancouver Island. His previous books include Ortona: Canada's Epic World War II Battle (Stoddart, 1999), The Yukon Fact Book (1998), The Alberta Fact Book (1997), The BC Fact Book (1995), The Gallant Cause: Canadians in the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939 (1996), and Scoundrels, the Dreamers and Second Sons: British Remittance Men in the Canadian West (1994).