THE LATEST LAWYER-HERO IN B.C. fiction, Cyril Bagshaw, was born somewhere between the Andaman Islands and the Gulf of Oman. While travelling on an American freighter from Singapore to the United Arab Emirates in 1987, author and retired Duncan lawyer David Ricardo Williams happened upon a copy of Robertson Davies' "Tempest Tossed" in the ship's library. Impressed by Davies' style, Williams, a self-described Anglophile, decided to begin his own amusing novel of manners, Ace of Pentacles (Sono Nis $9.95). It's a courtroom novel about Cyril Bagshaw, a small-town Canadian lawyer who is initiated into the dizzying depths of tarot cards and romance. With a twinkle in his eye, Williams now wonders aloud if his sortie into fiction will be detrimental to his reputation as B.C.'s leading biographer and writer-in-residence with UVic's Faculty of Law. His previous books include studies of Sir Matthew Baillie Begbie, Indian outlaw Simon Peter Gunanoot, Duff Pattullo and Mayor Gerry McGeer. Williams' current projects include a history of the Pinkerton Detective Agency's extensive operations in Canada since 1850, a commissioned centennial history for the Terminal City Club and another Cyril Bagshaw novel.

[BCBW 1991]