We love a great Canadian mystery series, and Amanda Doucette is such a fun protagonist in this truly Canadian woman sleuth series. Highly recommend!

4 stars
I enjoyed reading this book, which is the second book in the Amanda Doucette series. Amanda was an aid worker in Nigeria who barely escaped from a horrific massacre. She is now back home in Canada, gradually recovering from the emotional trauma she suffered. She wants to recover by giving back to the community and has organized a winter camping trip for refugee teenagers in the Quebec wilderness.
But first one, then a second teenager goes missing and when a dead body is found, Amanda realizes that there is a killer nearby. She enlists the help of friends introduced in book 1 of the series, Chris Tymko, a Mountie in Quebec for French language training and Matthew Goderich, a free lance reporter.
There are enough twists and turns in this mystery to make it an entertaining read. The author is a retired psychologist and likes to explore why people do bad things or risk their lives to do good things. Both themes are developed in this book.
One quote:
Sergeant Sechrest giving orders to Tymko: "Jesus H., try to stay low. You stick out like a bug on a bedsheet."
Thanks to NetGalley, Dundurn and Barbara Fradkin for sending me this ebook.

I loved this Canadian thriller.

Last fall, I went to Montreal and Mont Tremblant, so I could picture exactly where the story took place. I liked that it alternated between a city setting and the wilderness. It gave a full view of Quebec in the winter.

The mystery was so chilling. I really didn’t know what would happen. There were many possible explanations for disappearances, from drugs, to accidents, to escaping to terrorist groups, so I didn’t know what was the real answer.

I really liked that this was such a Canadian story. Even the way that the youth who go on the trip are immigrants from other countries demonstrates how the way that Canada is so multicultural.

I loved this story. It kept me on the edge of my seat. I’ll have to look for more books in this series!

They say you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but this one's striking jacket grabbed my attention, prompting me to read the blurb and then give this new-to-me author a go. (I'm also a fan of Canadian crime writing, and books set in the wilderness, so several boxes ticked even before I'd read a page).

Overall, I enjoyed the read. The Trickster's Lullaby is a good page-turner where Fradkin, who was a psychologist before becoming a well-established author with two previous mystery series, crafts an intriguing tale with plenty of 'what's going on?' and 'what's going to happen?' narrative drive.

I hadn't read the first book in the Amanda Doucette series, Fire in the Stars, but Fradkin gives new readers enough background to have a good grasp of her heroine's traumatic history, and how it might be affecting her current choices. Doucette has been an overseas aid worker who's seen the worst of what humanity has to offer, who has witnessed the potentially devastating effects of prejudice against those tagged as 'different' or 'other' in some way (particularly by those holding power). She's still looking to rebalance and reset herself by spending times in the peaceful Canadian wilderness, and by helping kids who come from different cultures to share experiences and perhap grow understanding.

There's plenty going on in The Trickster's Lullaby, and most of it works very well. Fradkin delves into the psychological ramifications of the trauma Doucette has witnessed, as well as social and political issues like the online recruitment of disillusioned teens by radical figures.

It's an action-packed story set against a beautiful backdrop - the Laurentian Mountains in Quebec. The winter season adds to the sense of isolation and hovering danger, as Doucette and the schoolkids are beset by challenges from without and within. The group dynamics, challenges of dealing with teenagers, and the wild environment are all evoked with a nice sense of authenticity.

Personally, I found it a little tough to warm to Doucette. She's an interesting character with a fascinating backstory, but one I felt at a little bit of a distance from, rather than being right alongside. She seemed to make illogical decisions that were more about herself (proving something to herself?) than caring for the kids or doing what might be right in a situation, despite her experience. I was still compelled to find out what happens/ed, but I wasn't quite pulled in as much as I'd hoped. Maverick characters are a staple of storytelling, of course, but this felt a little different, and didn't quite click.

Despite this minor quibble, overall I really enjoyed The Trickster's Lullaby, and I'd definitely read more of Fradkin's mystery writing, and more of the Amanda Doucette series. A good solid four-star read that just had the occasional wobble or off-note that meant it didn't quite reach five-star status.

Amanda is still recovering from the psychological effects of a traumatic experience which occurred during her time as an international aid worker. Seeking a new purpose she forms a charity designed to help teenagers and their families coming from disadvantaged and migrant backgrounds. She takes a group of teenagers from Montreal on an adventure trip through the Mont Tremblant National Park. The camping plans don’t go as expected when two of the teenagers go missing and the remote location delays police assistance. The situation worsens when one person turns up dead and another is suspected of having links to a terrorist group. Defusing frustrations and tempers takes all the skills Amanda gained from her overseas work as she struggles to ensure the safety of the group.
In addition to Amanda there are several other main characters that the author is able to make a perfect fit for the storyline. Luc is the young man whose mother begs he be allowed to join the group only for him to disappear one night. When a body is found everyone suspects it will be his. Zidane is a youth counsellor involved with Muslim youth who joins the group. When he starts to act in a suspicious manner Amanda believes he may have an ulterior motive for going on the trip. Sebastien and Sylvie ran a tourist business from home and are the guides for this trip. As well as being expert guides they have extensive survival skills and a vast knowledge of outdoor equipment. Yasmina is a bright and spirited teenager who begged with her very protective parents before they would allow her to join the other teenagers.
Although this book is a novel it still serves as a reminder of the growing world of radicalisation, the types of people more easily recruited than others and how cleverly they are radicalised. It is very easy to imagine these events actually happening. I was absolutely caught up in the story and used every opportunity to read it. Reading the first book in the Amanda Doucette mystery series is not vital to enjoying this one.
The author is a retired psychologist with an interest in what makes people do the wrong thing and that interest is displayed throughout the book. In my opinion she did an excellent job of developing the storyline and the main characters as well as maintaining the gripping pace. I highly recommend this to readers who enjoy mystery thrillers.

As the second book in the series, I can safely say that this isn't just an Amanda Doucette mystery. There are three solid characters that all seem to contribute to both the action of the story and the gathering of clues: Amanda Doucette, a former aid worker who has seem the damage war and violence can cause and is hoping to help heal some of that back home in Canada through at-risk youth camps, Chris Tympko from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police who has a crush on Amanda and never seems to be doing any actual police work within his own jurisdiction, and Matthew Goderich who is a journalist that knew Amanda back during her aid work days and is great at using his skills to find out information. While I like having multiple main characters, it does confuse the story a bit because they are all separately hunting down information and communication is sketchy throughout the entire story. The book spends a lot of time with the three traveling places and not having all the information. It was difficult to gauge distances and time and this made the book feel a bit scattered. I hope that calms down a bit in future books. Otherwise, a great story that took an interesting look at how terrorists are recruited.

Amanda Doucette is one of the best characters I've read in a long time. This second novel in what I hope will be a series explores issues beyond a camping trip gone wrong. The radicalization of young people, whether in Canada, the US, the UK, or elsewhere, is a growing and insidious problem. Luc and Yasmina are both bright teenagers but they are both facing problems larger than Amanda knows when she takes them to the forest in Quebec. When they go missing, she calls on her friends Chris and Matthew to use their resources in the police and journalism respectively to help but what they find is not what she expected. I very much enjoyed this and thank the publisher for the ARC. You will like the if you enjoy well written suspenseful and topical tales which are well told.

Barbara Fradkin, a Canadian mystery writer, tried to follow the age-old advice to write about something she knows. But, after producing a couple of novels that “mined the themes of my life,” she decided that different topics might be less dull and more productive. “The Tricksters Lullaby” is her effort at change, journeying into the psychological unknown, a place familiar to her as a retired child psychologist. She does it well.

This is her second book featuring adventurous foreign aid worker Amanda Doucette, who has returned to Canada after an upsetting mission overseas. In a continuing effort at helping those who struggle with life, she organizes a group of immigrant teenagers into a winter camping trip in the glorious Laurentian wilderness area. Plans are quickly thrown into disarray when two campers go missing and frantic efforts at finding them are not successful.

One of the missing is a troubled 18-year old boy who, originally not selected, was recently added to the group after impressing Doucette with his earnest desire to get involved. A young Iraqi girl, beautiful and mysterious, disappears shortly thereafter. Are they together? Is it a planned defection? When a murder occurs nearby and an ISIS plot is uncovered, are they involved in helping to plan a bombing attack? Are they to be martyrs? Doucette, aided by a columnist and a RCMP officer, must solve the mystery before many people are killed in the scheme.

Fradkin has done a masterful job of researching ISIS recruitment and the planning of mass destruction. She has also established the mindset of impressionable young people, while also uncovering the uncertainty of their adolescent thinking. There are numerous characters here but the author keeps them separated and decipherable. The roles of the young and the more mature are carefully delineated and their behaviors are consistently age appropriate.

I was intrigued by her story and the believability of her premise. I learned a lot, was entertained, and think this writer is immensely talented.

The Trickster's Lullaby: An Amanda Doucette Mystery is the second book in the Amanda Doucette Mystery series by Canadian author Barbara Fradkin. As a Canadian I love to support Canadian authors who are fantastic writers and storytellers. Fradkin has produced a contemporary Canadian mystery that is right out of today's headlines.

The Trickster's Lullaby is set in the woods of Northern Quebec. Amanda Doucette has brought a group of young multicultural Canadians on a camping trip to introduce them to the wonders of the Canadian woods. However, some members of the group have a hidden agenda that will take readers on a thrill ride.

I thoroughly enjoyed The Trickster's Lullaby. It was an excellent story set in Quebec which is always one of my favorite places to visit. The contemporary story line of young people drawn into the world ISIS was completely believable. The Trickster's Lullaby is filled with fascinating characters and a hint of romance for Amanda and RCMP Officer Chris Tymko.

I highly recommend The Trickster's Lullaby. It can be read as a stand alone but I would recommend enjoying the first book, Fire in the Stars, as well.

As part of her charity, Amanda Doucette organizes a group of culturally mixed Montreal inner-city teens to the remote Quebec wilderness for a winter camping adventure. But things go wrong when two of them go missing. Luc Prevost is a young man with a history of drug abuse and was someone whom Amanda was wary of from the start. When the group learns that a man has been killed not far from their camp, they suspect it might have been Luc. Unable to get any more information, Amanda and the group decide after a search to carry on with their outdoor adventure. But when Yasmina, an adventurous young Muslim woman also goes missing, panic begins to settle in. Did Luc and Yasmina run off together?

With the help of her journalist friend Matthew Goderich and RCMP Constable Chris Tymko, Amanda tries to collect information about Luc and Yasmina's motivations and soon learns about the self-radicalization of Canadian youth and how they are groomed and recruited by terrorist groups. The story then turns into a national security nightmare. It is a race against time for Amanda to save both Luc and Yasmina and to stop a homegrown terrorist attack in Canada's capital city, Ottawa.

This was a thrilling read and another fine addition to the Amanda Doucette mystery series.

I received this ARC from Netgalley and Dundurn Press in exchange for an honest review.

Firstly, can I just say that this was cover love at first sight – what an absolutely gorgeous cover! I couldn't resist it! Plus, I have discovered a lot of fantastic reads published by Dundurn in the past, so picking this book up was a double temptation for me.

The Trickster’s Lullaby was my first introduction to the Amanda Doucette mystery series, and I really enjoyed discovering a new interesting, multi-layered female protagonist who stands out from other fictional amateur sleuths by offering an interesting past that drives a lot of her actions. Plus, she has an adorable canine sidekick, who is the perfect companion to a woman who spends a lot of time in the mountains. In this latest instalment, Amanda is trying to enrich the lives of immigrant youths by exposing them to the Canadian wilderness, hoping that they will form some friendships in the process. Having experienced trauma in her own life, Amanda feels passionate about the youngsters, who each come from war torn countries and have lived through some hellish experiences. Even Luc, the only Canadian youth in the program, is battling with his own demons and substance abuse issues. It soon becomes obvious that things will not work out as Amanda has planned, and what better place for things to go awry than a wintry wilderness camp in a remote place!

I loved the scenes of slight discord as a diverse group of people are thrown together in a wild place, and the escalating tension as things spin out of control. To be honest, The Trickster’s Lullaby was not at all what I had expected, since I thought that the winter camp would feature for most of the story and focus on the group’s interpersonal relationships. It became very obvious in the first few pages that group dynamics would be an issue, and I loved how the author built the tension and the reader’s anticipation of conflict soon to come. However, the events in the camp only formed the first part of the story, and the scene soon shifted to a more political and current affairs arena, with other protagonists also featuring in the mystery and displaying a different angle to the story. Whilst I really enjoyed Amanda’s friends’ sleuthing and their various different characters, I admit that I would have preferred savouring the slow unravelling of the group and the escalating tension for a bit longer rather than the unexpected direction the novel was taking. Whilst the story was extremely well written and researched, and was certainly a topical issue, I admit I am not a great fan of politically based mysteries, and therefore perhaps not the perfect audience for this book.

That said, there is action, adventure, armchair-travel, some very interesting characters and a great surprise in store for the reader, so this is certainly an author who knows how to deliver a multi-layered, well-plotted mystery that keeps readers frantically turning the pages. I would love to see Amanda and her friends back in future novels – the more remote the setting the better. In the meantime, I must read the first in the series to discover a bit more about this remarkable former aid worker, who makes for such a refreshingly different protagonist.

Amanda Doucette wants to do something good for immigrant teens in Canada. She wants to teach them about Canadian life, and also about each other. She sets up a five-day camping trip in the snow covered Laurentian mountains.

The teens are chosen from a variety of backgrounds and the idea is to rough it and enjoy a part of life most of them know nothing about. When you choose a person though, you cannot see into his heart, that which is written in his soul. The eyes smile but the mind is in the killing fields of ISIS. And three kids are acting increasingly strangely...

The snow trip is supposed to be a happy surprise. It just doesn’t match the surprise the jihadists are planning. Then two kids disappear from camp and all hell breaks loose in the Canadian wilderness.

The author takes complete innocence, pure white snow, and slowly draws the reader into the mind of an extremist. It's a terrifying journey, especially considering who the recruiter actually is.

Brilliantly researched and written. If I could give 20 stars and force people to read this I would. Great work. Well done Ms Fradkin!

Elsa

Breakaway Reviewers received a copy of the book to review

I really liked this story line of this book. Looking forward to read more books from this author.

Amanda Doucette and her dog Kaylee are leading a group of young immigrant inner city teenagers into the wilderness of the Quebec, Canada's Laurentian Mountains in the hope the adventure of skiing, snow shoeing, ice fishing and open air cooking will help heal their fragile minds. These kids are from war torn countries and endured unimaginable horrors leaving their homes to make a new one in Canada.
Things go awry quickly with the disappearance of a boy, followed shortly thereafter by a girl. Is it a romantic getaway? With the murder of a farmer near their camp things spiral out of control and soon the local police and the RCMP are involved in the search.
The sense of place is marvellous, you can smell the snow, feel the cold and see the beauty of the mountainous wilderness. This is the 2nd book in the series and I'm a big fan. I'm hoping for a 3rd mystery,maybe set in Ontario in the summer or fall.
The writing is excellent and I love the cover of this book. A must read for any fan of mystery/adventures set in an exotic locale.
Thank you Netgalley and Dumdurn for the eARC.

A premise example of when what looks innocent really isn’t. It all started with a very false sense of security where a group of teenagers from troubled backgrounds, many of them recent asylum seekers to the country are taken into the Canadian wilderness to see and appreciate its beatuty.

Well you just know how that’s going to work out! Organiser Amanda does have good reasons for doing this (former book explains her story here) but it’s a noble attempt by anyone to try and make good for people in peril. Try telling the teenagers that though.

This escalates quickly and there are some moment which ring true but others where you can’t help wonder why they were brought here in the first place. Who thought this was going to be a good idea?

The landscape means that everything you read is focused and tightly plotted so that the characters have to do everything they can to survive. What do people do when pushed to the limits? The location of the events with their tricky legal issues and those of jurisdiction were interesting and the sense of peril and adventure do keep you reading. Brrr

This is an addictive and compelling thriller, that is very difficult to put down until the last page is read. It starts innocently enough as a planned adventure in the Canadian wilderness for disadvantaged teenagers – most of whom are recent asylum seekers from war-torn countries. The idea is to expose these young adults to the glories of Canadian nature, to challenge them physically and socially, and to allow them to escape the problems of their past and their everyday lives, at least for a short time.
The organiser, Amanda, is escaping her own hell formed by her experience in Nigeria, under attack from Boko Harum. Helping other damaged people is how she hopes to heal herself. Unfortunately, some of the teenagers have agendas that are quite different to what Amanda has planned, and her help is not always appreciated. First one teenager goes missing – then a second. Amanda ropes in two friends – Chris the policeman, and Matthew, the journalist – to find out what has happened to these youngsters before their inexperience of the Canadian winter and wilderness kills them. All too quickly, the hunt for the lost teens turns into a national security nightmare, and no-one is safe. Amanda – never one to trust lightly – discovers once again that appearances can be unimaginably deceiving. Amanda, Chris and Matthew are met with silence and stone walls at every turn – from the teenagers, the parents and even the police.
The characters in this book are all very believable and well rounded. Each has their particular reasons for acting the way they do, but their reasons are often well hidden from those around them. The plot twists and turns as more of the characters’ motivations are exposed.
As the story unfolds, it become horrifyingly apparent what a Sisyphean task the security forces have around the world in trying to keep a lid on terrorist activity. If the experts can’t cope, then what chance do Amanda and her friends have? And how many deaths will there be by the end of the book?

4 and 1 / 2 stars

Amanda Doucette is a survivor of a Nigerian horror who is still trying to cope with it. She leads a group of culturally mixed inner-city teens to the wilderness for a camping adventure. Two go missing, an eighteen-year old youth and a young Muslim girl.

The young man, Luc Prevost is someone of whom Amanda was wary of from the start of the adventure. When they receive a report of a man killed not far from their camp, they suspect it might have been Luc. Unable to get any more information, Amanda and the group are frustrated. They decide after a search to carry on with their plans.

When the Yasmina, the young woman, goes missing panic begins to settle in. Did the two run off together? Was this planned from the beginning of the trip?

Amanda contacts the police, but in such an isolated place, there are jurisdictional issues. Amanda contacts Matthew Goderich. He is a journalist and friend of Amanda’s who also assists her in her outdoor adventure endeavor. She wants him to get information on some of the key people such as Yasmina’s parents and Luc’s mother. Matthew goes so far as to contact Luc’s father as well. Matthew suspects there is something odd going on. When Matthew finds a hidden laptop of Luc’s, he knows it.

Chris Tymko from Newfoundland an RCMP officer and friend of Matthew and Amanda’s who is in Montreal doing a French-speaking course. He gets involved too. At first he tries for information, but then becomes embroiled in the affair.

As the connections come together and the tensions mount, the reader races towards the conclusion. It is both surprising and explosive.

This is an extremely well written and plotted novel. The characters were likeable, except for Amanda’s tendency not to listen to advice and run off half-cocked into danger. This is my first Barbara Fradkin book, but it certainly won’t be my last. I truly enjoyed this novel. It was a refreshing and original storyline.

I want to thank Netgalley and Dundurn for forwarding to me a copy of this great book to read.

Great first book in a series, really enjoyable and thrilling plot.