Book Review: ‘The Haunting of Modesto O’Brien’ by Brit Griffin

The Haunting of Modesto O’Brien

The Haunting of Modesto O’Brien by Brit Griffin is a tale of wonder and woe. Set in Ontario, Canada’s Cobalt during the silver boom of the early 20th century, the novel takes readers on a magical and slightly terrifying ride. For those suffering under the misconception that Canada is that nice polite place where the lawlessness and the villainy of the American West had no home, well, this story will be the proverbial eyeopener.

The great silver rush was a watershed moment in Canadian history. Even though Toronto was hundreds of miles from the site, the rush established the city as the country’s financial capital. Investors in the south poured money into mining operations up north and reaped the returns from others’ labor.

With profits the only concern, nothing was held sacred—not the lives of the men and women who worked the mines or lived in the town; not the water and trees sacrificed for greed; and most definitely not the rights of the region’s Indigenous peoples. All that mattered was getting the silver out of the ground as cheaply as possible to maximize return.

Griffin drops us smack dab in the middle of this festering mess of human greed and desperation. Modesto O’Brien has arrived in Cobalt from Butte, Montana and set up shop as a detective and fortune teller. When we first meet him he’s rescuing an abused horse on what passes for the main street of Cobalt.

In these introductory pages Griffin not only shows us how different her titular character is from his surroundings, but introduces us to the stink and casual brutality of a town given over to the pursuit of instant wealth. We can almost smell the reek of fetid mud and waste rising from the pages of the book as she describes O’Brien in the street with the horse.

O’Brien is not your typical detective. His skill set includes some interesting gifts he inherited from his Irish grandmother, Biddy. Aside from an awareness of the world beyond the ken of most humans, he has the gift of “sight.” His visions may not give him accurate pictures, but they give him insights into a person’s character and nature.

As in all good noir detective stories, the case begins when a mysterious woman walks into the detective’s storefront office. Lily Nail contracts him to find her missing sister Lucy. They were supposed to meet in Cobalt but Lucy never showed. She had boarded a train in New York and disappeared.

Coincidently (or not) the Nail sisters are from Butte and are not unknown, by reputation at least, to O’Brien. They are infamously known as outlaws who rob men in particular. However, there is more to the two sisters than that, as the missing Lucy shares O’Brien’s talents for seeing. 

Unlike the majority of Cobalt’s population, neither the sisters nor O’Brien are here for the chance at a quick fortune. In fact they have been drawn there because of a singularly evil man, Tommy Coffin. The sisters have been running from Coffin while O’Brien has been hunting him across North America. Cobalt is their point of convergence and where history and mystery are resolved.

Griffin has accomplished the difficult job of telling the story from multiple points of view. O’Brien, Coffin, the Nail sisters and others all chime in with their versions of events as the story progresses. Instead of this causing the story to become a confusing mess, the conflicting images and opinions draw readers deeper into the plot.

Griffin has also done a remarkable job of weaving together a classic North American noir detective story, Irish mythology, gothic-style horror and frontier-town adventure, all against the backdrop of an early-20th-century mining town. The moody and oppressive atmosphere she creates is ably abetted by descriptions of life in the town. 

There is a darkness underlying everything and it permeates life and the story. From the way the men treat each other, their disrespect for women, and their cavalier attitude towards the natural world, we’re given a picture of humanity at its worst. Empathy and compassion don’t exist, and the strongest bully and kill their way to the top.

Through her descriptions of how this darkness manifests in the story, Griffin gives us insight into the impact the quest for silver in Northern Ontario impacted the land and the people. It’s a much-needed reminder, as we are hellbent on continuing the exploitation of natural resources in delicate environments, of just how destructive humans can be—to the world around them and each other.

The Haunting of Modesto O’Brien by Brit Griffin combines elements of Dashiell Hammett, Irish mythology, gothic horror and a western mining camp to create a riveting tale of greed and mystery. You won’t want to put it down.