The Book of Gronsky

Gilbert Gronsky is at it again. The neophyte author of The Life of Gronsky has returned to the world of Danny Hawkins, a Vancouver Island-based P.I. whose midcentury sleuthing proves far more palatable than the grind of post-pandemic self-promotion. Unfortunately, Gronsky feels obliged to market his first book - a task that takes him from a Saturday afternoon launch at the local library to a midwinter writers' festival on Ostrich Island. As the larger world devolves into war and climate disaster, attending such an event feels a bit like putting his head in the sand, but Gronsky isn't fated to engage in the activist shenanigans of younger authors like the doggedly dedicated poet, Tree Leaf. He's got a published book to promote and a new book to write - a novel/memoir about a multitude of mysteries in and around Nanaimo, BC in the 50s and early 60s including goings-on connected to that prodigious mystic/charlatan, Brother Xll. Will Gronsky finish his second manuscript, or is he destined to be a one-book wonder? And, worryingly, is that even a thing?