On the Reading List - A Life of Bliss

Let’s do a shout-out to the debut authors. What’s a wonderful book by a first time crime fiction author you’ve read in the last six months?

Brenda here.

I've read one debut novel during the past six months titled A Life of Bliss, written by retired award-winning journalist Don Butler, who spent 40 years at the Ottawa Citizen, including six years as executive director.

A Life of Bliss is something of an unusual mystery with a quirky protagonist named Bliss Browning. Bliss is a travel editor who hates and fears travel. He's also got few friends and a failed marriage. The only thing that raises him out of a mundane existence is his passion for the opera star Maria Callas. 

Unexpectedly, his home computer email becomes overtaken by 'a ghost' purporting to be Callas speaking to him beyond the grave. She wants him to travel to Greece to undertake a mission on her behalf. Bliss, of course, believes himself to be hallucinating. When his boss decides he's to go on a trip to Africa that Bliss is desperate to avoid, events are set in motion, and the mystery unfolds. 

Butler calls this book "a hilarious and hopeful modern-day fable", and is a book I recommend for its originality, good writing, and well drawn characters. Life of Bliss turns out to be a most entrancing tale and a brilliant debut.

Website: www.brendachapman.ca

Facebook & Instagram: BrendaChapmanAuthor

Twitter: brendaAchapman