Exploring Ottawa — the Spectacular Setting in Blind Date
Blind Date: A Hunter and Tate Mystery is set in Ottawa, Canada’s capital, a city flanked by the Ottawa River to the north and bisected by the Rideau River and the Rideau Canal. These three distinct waterways run through neighbourhoods, sustain forests and wild life, and bring green space to our back doors. Bike paths, parks, gardens and beaches are lovingly maintained throughout the metropolis, offering outdoor experiences year-round. This is a city of distinct neighbourhoods: Chinatown, Little Italy, Westboro, Hintonburg to name but a few, each with its own culture and vibe in this town of a million people. Sprinkled throughout the communities are old limestone and brick buildings that have been converted into restaurants and shops with modern high rises and condominiums increasingly dotting the horizon.
This is my fictional, true crime podcaster Ella Tate’s world.
Ella lives in a trendy, well-to-do neighbourhood called the Glebe in the same apartment I lived in before I got married. In my day, the three-storey, red brick house was owned by a rough but kind-hearted Polish man who, like the landlord in Blind Date, rented out the second and third floors for low rates to the chagrin of his neighbours. The third floor is a cramped space in the eaves, the place where I lived for the first year before moving to the larger apartment a floor below.
Ella gets around the city on a bicycle as I did back then, often cutting across the Glebe to the bike path that parallels the canal and leads into the downtown — the heart of the city with the majestic Parliament Buildings, the vibrant Byward Market, and stunning views of the Ottawa River and the Quebec shoreline. Taking the bike path in the opposite direction leads past Dow’s Lake where boats can be rented in the summer and people gather in the winter to skate the length of the this longest frozen waterway in the world. Going up the hill, takes one into the Experimental Farm, an actual working farm in the middle of the city, but one with gardens and trees and bushes from all over the world. The spring is a time of particular beauty with magnolia, lilac, and apple trees in full bloom.
This is a bilingual (French and English) government city, but growing increasingly multicultural. The cuisine and shops offer fare from first- and second- generation immigrants from around the world, making for varied and rich cultural and dining experiences. Farmers’ markets and festivals of every variety, including the world-famous tulip festival, occupy the warmer months. The city is growing, but many who live here still comment on the small-town feel. People get to know their neighbours and community spirit runs strongly through neighbourhoods. Countryside, towns and villages are within easy driving distance. Only minutes away across the border into Quebec, the Gatineau Hills are a mecca for viewing autumn colours and winter skiing. Ottawa is a bucket-list city, providing an ever-changing, fascinating, and diverse setting for the Hunter and Tate mysteries that I hope readers will experience vicariously and grow to love through these books.
A Hunter and Tate Mystery, Book 1
True crime podcaster Ella Tate is shaken to her core by the horrific assault and murder of Josie Wheatly, a teacher she has never met … because not only had Josie moved into Ella’s vacated apartment three months earlier, but her Facebook photos reveal a striking resemblance between the two women.
Within days, two people close to Ella are harmed, and she fears that she’s become the target of twisted revenge from her crime-reporting days. Reluctantly teaming up with her neighbour Tony, a hairdresser who loves the finer things in life, and Liam Hunter, the persistent detective assigned to the cases, Ella struggles to stay one step ahead before she becomes the target of the final kill.
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