The Amanda Doucette Mysteries consistently deliver adventure and suspense, while highlighting the Canadian landscape. The remote island in Vancouver Island’s Pacific Rim was the perfect backdrop for the wilderness-infused mystery. I also appreciated that Amanda's struggles with PTSD were sensitively portrayed.

Wreck Bay is the 5th mystery thriller featuring Amanda Doucette by Barbara Fradkin. Released 21st Feb 2023 by Dundurn Press, it's 320 pages and is available in paperback and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links and references throughout. I've really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats lately.

This is a well written and suspenseful adventure thriller with an interesting and strong protagonist. The scene setting and descriptions of the wildness of the northwest Pacific coast are stunning and raw. The author takes a number of liberties with the way (most?) nonprofit organizations work, which is a linchpin of the plot, but overall, it's an engaging and entertaining read. Despite being the 5th book, it works well as a standalone, and readers won't have any trouble following along or keeping the characters straight if this is their introduction to the series.

It's not derivative at all, but fans of Louise Penny, Elly Griffiths, and Ann Cleeves will find a lot to like here. It's oddly and unevenly paced, but not egregiously so. With 5 books extant in the series, it would be a good candidate for a binge or buddy read. For sensitive readers, there are frank descriptions of PTSD, mental illness, and drug use.

Three and a half stars.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

Great introduction to a new author for me, and a wonderful addition to our collection for our patrons. I look forward to more! THANK you!

A good and solid mystery. Well plotted, gripping and kept me guessing.
Amanda is a well plotted character and I enjoyed this story.
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this arc, all opinions are mine

Wreck Bay, set on Vancouver Island, is an engaging mystery. I found it enjoyable in spite of breaking my own rule about reading series in order, The author does an amazing job describing the environment and wild terrain in a part of the world that is probably unfamiliar to most. She ties together present day events and characters with those from the past, creating an intriguing mystery and adventure. 4 stars

Wreck Bay is the fifth time out with former aide worker Amanda Doucette who began trauma counseling after surviving a deadly massacre in Nigeria. The story begins with her checking out the sites and amenities for outdoor adventure for a planned father-son counseling excursion. This takes her to coastal British Columbia and remote islands. She meets a fellow trauma survivor there named Luke, a man who has lived there since the Seventies when he came presumably to dodge the draft.

But there is more to his story and when Amanda and her guide find the body of a stranger, the police are certain Luke is involved. Indeed, the more we learn about the stranger and Luke’s lives, the more likely his involvement seems. When the victim’s sister shows up, looking for vengeance, things really begin to heat up.



Wreck Bay was alternately disappointing and infuriating. As someone with years of experience in nonprofits, the nonchalant harum-scarum approach to planning the adventure struck me as bizarre and feckless. It seems Amanda creates new excursions from scratch which enabled the author, Barbara Fradkin, to take her all over the Canadian wilderness, but which is simply counterfactual to nonprofit experience.

A more significant failing in my eyes is the failure to follow what I think is one of the more important rules of detective fiction. Whether Ronald Knox’s ten rules or S.S. Van Dine’s twenty rules, Fradkin blatantly broke an incredibly important rule. This makes the mystery unfair and leaves readers too far in the dark. Of course, Amanda is in the dark as well, but that doesn’t make up for breaking a very important rule. If I told you which rule was broken, it would be a spoiler, but I cannot review this book without noting this. It is egregious.

Fradkin is an able writer. We can see what Amanda sees and experience the almost claustrophobic density of the forest and the wild freshness of the ocean. Her characters are also complex and interesting people. Where she falls down is in the resolution of the plot.

I received an e-gally of Wreck Bay from the publisher through NetGalley

Wreck Bay at Dundurn Press
Barbara Fradkin

The most recent entry in Fradkin’s wonderful Amanda Doucette series is mainly set in and around Dofino, an island near Vancouver Island. Amanda is scouting out her next trip, this time for recovering addicts and their sons. A death leads Amanda to a reclusive artist and back to the commune in the area in the late 1960s-early 1970s. Another good mystery from Ottawa author, Barbara Fradkin.

Amanda Doucette has travelled to Vancouver Island’s rugged coast to explore locations and try out activities for her charity's next outing with fathers-sons seeking help. She is assisted by an ex-convict turned social worker named Tag and her best friend Matthew Goderich. Amanda is riveted by paintings drawn by a reclusive artist named Luke. Luke, a suspected Vietnam War deserter with PTSD, had lived in a hippie commune at Wreck Bay in the early 1970s until a tragedy forced him to flee & live off the grid on another remote island. A trauma survivor herself from her aid work in Nigeria, Amanda meets Luke & they form a fragile relationship.

When the body of an American surfer washes up, Luke flees his home to hide deep in the remote wilderness. Then the victim's sister arrives & aggressively demands to be taken to Luke's home. Tag is also acting weirdly. Amanda is relentlessly determined to find and help Luke to the dismay of Matthew & her RCMP boyfriend Chris. There is plenty of tense action and gorgeous descriptions of the Vancouver Island settings.

I received a digital ARC from Netgalley and Dundurn Press. My opinions are my own.

Thank you to NetGalley and they publisher for the ARC.
Loved the atmosphere of this book set in Vancouver. I understand now that this was part of a series of books and this one could be read as a standalone. Though now I will need to read the others in the series. Great mystery.

With vivid, descriptive prose, Barbara Fradkin transports readers into the wilderness of Vancouver Island’s Pacific Rim as the main character, Amanda Doucette researches the area around Tofino as the site for her latest charity tour. Doucette, a former front line, globe-trotting aid worker, has chosen the wilderness area for a program aimed at helping recovering addicts restore their relationships with their adult children.

After arriving in Tofino, a haunting painting she comes across mesmerizes Doucette and makes her determined to meet the artist. Though the locals warn he is a troubled, unpredictable recluse, Amanda persists. Eventually she meets Luke, the artist, at his remote cabin deep in the wilderness and they strike up an uneasy friendship. A trauma survivor herself who often struggles to keep herself together, Doucette understands and readily identifies with Luke, a suspected Vietnam War deserter who suffers PTSD because of his wartime experiences. Soon Amanda gets embroiled in a tense, dangerous situation when someone murders a wealthy American financier and Luke becomes the prime suspect.

While I appreciated the descriptive prose that made the novel so atmospheric, there is so much of it in the early part of the book that it slows the pace more than I liked. But after the slow start, Fradkin builds up to the kind of tense scenes that readers expect from a good thriller. She incorporates important social issues with a focus on the complexities of human behavior without turning preachy, particularly on how profoundly trauma affects lives and on all the expectations women put on themselves, and that are placed upon them by family, friends, and society at large. But it’s the characters and storytelling that set Wreck Bay apart.

The engaging, but flawed Amanda and Luke, the artist she meets and feels great empathy for, are both compelling characters. Besides their developing friendship and bonds of trust, Fradkin adds another layer of mystery with Luke’s past history and relationship with his estranged family. This history infuses the story, eventually building to a crescendo.

Although Amanda is the compelling primary focus, the rest of the cast is likewise well-drawn, especially Matthew Goderich, her best friend, who handles the financial and logistical details for Amanda’s charity. Fradkin also deftly introduces the supporting cast, sharing intriguing facts about their backgrounds and painting a clear picture of each, with each character’s purpose evolving over the course of the story. The overlapping lives, and the role each individual character plays, elevate this winning mystery and thriller tale. Wreck Bay is a reminder of how fragile life is, and how profoundly trauma shapes our lives. It will appeal to those who enjoy reading authors like Louise Penny and Jane Harper.

Great atmosphere and investment in the ragged natural world of Northwestern Vancouver Island. As many eccentric characters as live in Three Pines, but Fradkin’s Amanda Doucette novels take us all across Canada.

The mystery is as complex as I have come to expect from a Fradkin novel. Just when you think you know what’s going on, a new twist arises that you realize has been foreshadowed all along, tucked almost invisibly between the local scenery and First Nations lore.

There’s a moment where Amanda blurts out something that she would be better keeping quiet about, and it’s unmotivated, or at least unexplained, what changed her tactic of keeping quiet to suddenly blowing her cover. At one point there's a scene that might be seen as white savior-ism, but otherwise the book is respectful of the area’s First Nations people and the natural environment they protect against the double onslaught of tourism and industry.

Themes include PTSD, art as therapy, police handling of mental illness, tourism in wilderness areas, Vietnam era draft dodgers and deserters who set up communes on Vancouver Island and smaller area islands.

I have read all Fradkin's books and they only get better. Her latest is set on the west coast of Vancouver Island, around Tofino, a place I know well. The setting is beautifully described, the story is gripping, and I was drawn along by rising tension and pace.
Highly recommended.

While exploring the rugged landscape of Vancouver Island’s Pacific coast, Amanda Doucette is drawn to a reclusive old artist known only as Luke, who lives off the grid on a remote island. His vivid paintings hint at a traumatic secret from his past that brings to mind her own struggles with PTSD, and they begin to bond.
But when the body of a surfer washes up on the beach, Luke flees deep into the interior. What is the connection between the victim and Luke, and what does it have to do with Vietnam and a hippie commune from fifty years ago? Fearing Luke might do something desperate, Amanda searches for answers and races to find him before the police or the victim’s family get to him first. Writing that is laced with quiet devastation!

4 stars for a well done thriller/mystery. I have read 3 books in this series, not all in order, but this worked fine as a stand alone. Amanda Doucette was a relief worker in Nigeria. The village she was staying in was attacked by terrorists. She ran for her life and then returned home to Canada. She now runs a relief agency, taking on projects around the country.
This book has her setting up outdoor adventures for recovering addicts. She becomes intrigued by the story of a hermit, living in the wilderness part of Vancouver Island. The mystery deepens when she learns that he has a connection to a mysterious fire some 50 years before. She starts digging into the past and discovers buried secrets. Then someone dies in mysterious circumstances and Amanda discovers the body.
All of the elements of the plot are tied together for a satisfying ending. There is a genealogical element to the plot that adds to the mystery.
One quote, describing a trail: "The fresh scent of cedar mingled with the damp, musty loam of the rainforest. The path meandered up and down around rocky outcrops and fallen trees, over rotting roots, and through mossy bogs, slowly climbing as they hiked inland, clapping their hands at blind turns to alert the bears to their presence."
Thanks to Dundurn Press for sending me this eARC through NetGalley.

Thanks to NetGalley and Dundurn Press for the ARC for the newest addition to the Amanda Doucette Mysteries. I have read and enjoyed every book in this series by author Barbara Fradkin who writes atmospheric and luscious descriptions of scenic locations across Canada where the stories are based. I have also read some of the author's Inspector Green books. The mysteries are well-devised, but I regret that the protagonist, Amanda Doucette, has become so annoying that it detracted from my enjoyment.

Amanda was traumatized while working as an international aid worker in several dangerous places overseas. While in northern Nigeria, she witnessed bloody slaughter in a village and was haunted by the fact that she could not save everyone. On returning to Canada, she organized a charity that provided wilderness adventures for children or adults as healing experiences needed in their lives.

Some readers will admire Amanda for her conviction and determination to help others, but I found her pushy behaviour more extreme than usual and was making her difficult to like. This story is set in the Vancouver Island wilderness. There is an exquisite sense of location. The mountains, dense forests where bears, wolves and moose roam, and gorgeous surfing beaches are vividly described. She begins scouting forest trails for her next adventure. The group is aimed at middle-aged men and their elderly fathers as a bonding exercise. The fathers had been addicts or imprisoned for petty crimes. I was concerned that the elderly men might lack the endurance for the hikes, which was an ill-devised activity awaiting them.

Amanda is present when the body of a murdered man is discovered, and she seems to lose interest in the upcoming charity adventure and goes into her crime-solving mode. I thought she was overly aggressive and intrusive, took high risks, and didn't always wait for police. She refused to follow any advice offered. She behaved impetuously, rushing into danger, resulting in her guides and devoted friends being placed in peril through their efforts to help. Soon there were three shootings resulting in serious injuries. Amanda becomes obsessed with investigating the crimes and is not attending to plans for the upcoming wilderness adventure. Fortunately, she has left the organization to others.

The mystery involves twisted family relationships and hidden or unknown identities. A hippy commune located at Wreck Cove fifty years earlier plays an integral part in solving the mystery. People came from across Canada looking for an alternate lifestyle with free love and plenty of mind-altering drugs. American deserters from the VietNam war and draft dodgers ended up in the Wreck Cove commune until authorities shut it down. The commune was the site of a tragic fire, misplaced blame, and people intent on revenge.

With the mysteries solved, Amanda is considered a hero, even by the local police, who previously resented her interference. I can't say how the neglected charity event turned out. I would read the next book in the series if Amanda relaxes more and calms down. I hope more beautiful Canadian wilderness areas can be explored through the author's immersive nature writing.

I really love to support Canadian authors and I really, really wanted to like it, but I found the mystery kind of flat. (but the descriptions of that area of Canada are fantastic!)

I would describe as a less cosy mystery with a lot of war references (and guns - everybody has one). It might have worked better for me as historical fiction with the story taking place maybe just a few years after the Vietnam war. It seemed kind of impossible for the police to have such a hard time finding Luke with modern technology (like heat seeking equipment and search dogs).

3 stars

Amanda flies across Canada to the west coast to scout a location for a new tour group of estranged fathers and sons. Some of them are suffering from alcoholism and other addictions and some have minor criminal histories.

She meets a very reclusive artist named Luke. He lives a hermit-like existence, but they seem to make a connection. Both are suffering from past traumas. When Luke disappears, Amanda sets out to locate him and try to help him.

Amanda Doucette seems more than a little off the rails in this installment of the series. I questioned her judgment, as another reviewer stated, of taking elderly men on some of the strenuous outings she was looking at. When meeting a new local associate nicknamed Tag, she doesn’t trust him. Then she does. She certainly wants to be in charge all the time and makes it clear to Tag. Luckily, he is an easy-going guy. It was irritating.

I was disappointed in this book, as I so enjoyed the previous ones. I will, however, await the next book in this series providing Ms. Fradkin writes one.

The book’s saving grace is the wonderful descriptions of the sheer beauty of the west coast of Canada. Having been there many times myself, I can attest that it is some of the most breathtaking scenery.

I want to thank NetGalley and Dundurn Press for forwarding to me a copy of this good book for me to read, enjoy and review. The opinions expressed in this review are solely my own.

I typically try to avoid books that are part of a series if I haven't read the previous books, but I was drawn to this book because it is set on the West cost of Vancouver Island.

The book does work as a standalone, although I did feel at times that I was missing some of the backstory, particularly with some of the characters that were obviously introduced in previous books

Amanda Doucette heads out to Vancouver Island to plan for her next trip and finds a painting that really speaks to her. She goes in search of the reclusive artist to discover that he suffers from PTSD and uses his art to express his emotions. Later when someone is found dead nearby, the reclusive artist is suspected.

The setting of the story is great. The story is slow to build up but does get going. It was an enjoyable read for the most part and I like stories that have more going on that just the search for a killer, and this one certainly does.
I'd give this on a 3.5 stars out of 5.

#AmandaDoucette #NetGalley

A thriller set in Canada featuring Amanda Doucette and is the latest instalment in a series. A fast moving and easy read.

Quick take: An easy and fast-moving read; best read as part of the Amanda Doucette series (this is #5).

In this installment of the series, Amanda Doucette travels across Canada to Vancouver, where she is planning a charity hiking and kayaking trip for fathers and sons in recovery. With her is a new team member, a rather mysterious man named Tag.
While exploring the coastline and islands off the coast, Amanda seeks out a reclusive artist whose work has captivated her. (We have to say it seemed strange that she would just walk into his house and his private studio and start looking around uninvited.) Trauma from this man’s past creates a bond between them, and when he is implicated in a death, Amanda is determined to do all she can to help him. Meanwhile, her boyfriend Chris and work partner/confidante Matthew are getting more and more worried for her safety.
First, I'll say that I haven’t read the other books in the series prior to this one, and I feel this is definitely a book that builds characters over a longer arc than just one book. Coming in on book 5, I felt a lack of character knowledge and the importance of Chris and Matthew, especially. This lack of deeper character connection kept the story at a more superficial level, especially in regard to the main (continuing) characters.
Also, based on my misinterpretation of the publisher's blurb, I thought this was going to be much more of a woman against nature/woods adventure story; while there are some lovely descriptions of the area, being immersed in nature is not a big part of the story. Amanda’s choice of activities for the fathers and sons (some dads are predicted to be 60-70), also don’t make sense; strenuous kayaking, extremely difficult hiking, and the like did not seem logical for someone researching a trip for amateurs and elderly people.
Overall, I’d see this as a light beach- or weekend read, not long on character development but with enough scenery and action to pass a few pleasant hours. Readers of the entire series will likely enjoy the book most.