Ottawa Regional and Ken Allan's Deadly Endplay

The Ottawa regional starts today and I look forward to seeing some friends, playing some bridge, and taking pictures of the major event winners.  One person I hope to photograph is Kingston Ontario's Ken Allan, who has recently published a bridge mystery "Deadly Endplay" - for cover art and a summary see Ken's bridge web pages, including this one on the book itself:

http://home.cogeco.ca/~allan/deadly_endplay.html

The book is available from bridge supplier and bookseller Vince Oddy who will be at the regional.  This is a book many should consider buying, and let me tell you why I think that.

First off, the art work for the book is fantastic, the best I've ever seen for bridge fiction.  The art work involves many mirrored reflections throughout the book, which matches the book's thesis that a player's personality is reflected in the way bridge hands are tackled.  

The novel is set in a small northern Ontario town, and it has the whimsical small town feel, from the peculiar characters of the local bridge club to the pacing of the plot.  For those used to a kinetic, urban style, this will take a few pages to get smallvilled, but after a while the place and players grow on you, to the point when you reach the end, you're left hoping for a sequel. The book is a bridge mystery, both as it deeply involves the bridge game, and because it has a puzzling death of someone off a bridge.   There are a number of smaller clever mini-mysteries interweaved in the book involving secrets and backstories that surprise us.  

For a novel, there is a lot of bridge in this book, much of it focused at the club level player, with suggestions subtly given on how to improve your game.  This is not a book peppered with unbelievable hands that one would never see in real play.  Instead everything is kept real, just like the characters and outcome.  

The bottom line is this book will resonate with you long after you read it, and even though the book will not change your personality, you will soon notice the bridge advice given in the book reflected in the hands you play.