Book review: Past Tense by Margot Kinberg

Kramer walked slowly in the direction Stephens had indicated. Then he stopped short. His face drained of colour and he gulped twice. He could see it clearly — a bone sticking up out of the dirt he’d been preparing to move.

It’s not often that the principal character in a work of fiction takes a back seat and allows the secondary players to lead from the front. In Past Tense, Joel Williams, the affable and self-effacing policeman-turned-academician, does just that—and still walks away with honours. But then, he's the hero of the novel..

The professor in the Department of Criminal Justice at Tilton, a fictional university in Pennsylvania, hasn’t lost his detective streak. When construction workers on campus dig up bones identified as those of Bryan Roades, a 20-year-old student who disappeared four decades ago, Williams quietly begins looking into the cold case..

As Tilton police detectives Donna Crandall and her partner Ron Zuniga take up the investigation with steadfast resolve. Williams conducts his own inquiries into the suspected murder, working alongside the detectives and passing on useful leads as they try to answer two questions: who killed Roades, and why?

The investigation takes them back 40 years, to the people Roades knew and the secrets they have carried ever since. Inspired by journalists Woodward and Bernstein of Watergate fame, Roades had been relentlessly pursuing a story about the women's liberation movement for The Real Story, the Tilton University newspaper. He was trying to interview professors and fellow students, including women who were reluctant to talk because they feared having their personal lives and secrets exposed. His zeal may have cost him his life.  

The discovery of his remains opens a Pandora’s box, as those who knew Roades find themselves in the crosshairs of the investigation. As Williams and the police detectives inch closer to the truth, one of Roades's former acquaintances is found dead. Suddenly, there are two murders—one from the past and another in the present.

Past Tense, the third in Margot Kinberg’s Joel Williams series, is a fine blend of police procedural and campus mystery.

Though Joel Williams greets us from page one, he gets into the thick of the mystery much later. Until then, he follows the case in the Tilton Sentinel over a cup of coffee. I found his character particularly interesting. I don’t think I have read many mysteries where a detective or private investigator keeps such a low profile and helps solve the case from the sidelines, almost like a spectator.

Yet Williams's interest in the Bryan Roades case is genuine. It has less to do with winning accolades or attracting attention than with his previous life as a cop and his enduring passion for solving mysteries.

The narrative moves back and forth in time, gradually revealing Roades's character and his relationships with people we meet in the present. There are few descriptions and plenty of dialogue, the way I like most fiction. The pace is easy, almost leisurely, but Kinberg keeps the story moving throughout the 421-page novel.

If you're familiar with the author's prolific crime-fiction website and blog, Crime Writer Margot Kinberg, you'll recognise the author's familiarity with the genre and her interest in the mechanics of crime and detection.

Past Tense is engaging and entertaining, with an unusual campus setting and an intriguing cold-case mystery at its heart. Kinberg brings her academic background to bear on the story without allowing it to overwhelm the mystery. I enjoyed the slow-burn investigation and the unusual role played by Joel Williams.

P.S. Special thanks to Margot for sending me a signed copy of the book.