Turnstone Press, 1997
When Kenneth spots maggots feeding in a dumpster behind a 7-Eleven, he knows a crime has been committed. Why, and by whom are the questions unravelled through changes of season and setting in A Blue and Golden Year.
The story alternates between a Canadian prairie city and a coastal town in Mexico. In Canada, tightly wound Audrey Laird wants to change her disastrous relationship with Lillian, her ne’er-do-well sister. She is also interested that her old flame, Detective Frank Foote, has checked his wife into rehab. Lillian is concerned with the whereabouts of her drug-dealing boyfriend, Iggy. A corpse has been discovered in his apartment and it isn’t his.
In Mexico, Iris, the love of Iggy’s life, runs the Pink Lady bar, where she tries to ignore the antics of Honey, her cocktail waitress. Above it all, in his house on the hill is wealthy, evil Ernest, Iris’s business partner and keeper of Honey. How many people want this man dead? In the search for answers, not everyone survives.
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Alison Preston is a stylist who brings a deft touch to this first novel.… gritty, off-beat story… with brilliant imagery…”
– Verne Clemence, Saskatoon Star Phoenix
The sensational plot is counterpointed by an atmosphere of quirky but entirely believable dailiness… The mixture of horror and despair with a cautious recognition of the possibilities for happiness based on small victories defines the tone of this unusual and off-beat book.”
– Paul Denham, Newest Review