Patrick O'Neil is VP and heir apparent at Hammond Industries when he quits after a falling out with boss Bill Hammond. Retirement doesn't agree with O'Neil. He's dead within days, victim of a professional hit. At least so it first appears. The crime is investigated by Joe Schumacher, Hammond's chauffeur and general dogs-body. That's not as cozy as it seems either. Schumacher is a classic hard-boiled inquirer along the lines of Macdonald's Lew Archer, with a knock-about past, including shady time on the Toronto police force. Hired to provide personal security as well as steer the company limo, Schumacher has revealed a talent for investigating companies that Hammond Industries eyes for takeover. Through the years he has nimbly traversed the rungs of the corporate ladder and become O'Neil's best friend.

Among Hammond's entrepreneurial skills is an eye for talent. He's one of those driven, self-made SOBs that build business empires out of spit and grit, managing to draw an ambitious set of hustlers and true loyalists in his wake. If that sounds like a cliche, Blair brings it alive by focusing on the hired help, the many rationalizations they use to stay through years of abuse, and how the top man exploits them. That's the chief pleasure to be found in this novel, including a barely legal, romantic twist that binds Schumacher, O'Neil and Hammond further together with ties that bleed.

Regrettably, the mystery itself cheats with a solution that hinges on last-minute information. Blair tries to get fancy with the old double-switcheroo. But it's the corporate and sexual intrigue that makes A Hard Winter Rain so worth reading. That and Vancouver itself. Tell us Michael, will we always have Vancouver?