Mystery novels bring to mind hard-boiled police officers and private investigators, not environmental activists. But a Victoria writer has penned the first book in a series of mystery novels that pit an environmental activist against government, corporations and his own troubled past.

Stephen Legault's first novel, The Cardinal Divide, follows an environmental activist named Cole Blackwater as he works to stop an open-pit coal mine development in southern Alberta. The development threatens the Cardinal Divide, a real-world north-south watershed divide, a foothill ridge that juts from the eastern slopes of Jasper National Park and separates the rivers and streams that flow to the Arctic from those that feed Hudson's Bay.

Once a top environmental consultant in Ottawa who has fallen from grace, Blackwater has laid off his last employee and can't pay his rent. He takes the only job he can get, working with a group of kitchen-table activists (referred to as "tree-huggers and fish-kissers") to stop the mine.

Rather quickly, it turns out that all is not what it seems in the town of Oracle: A murder, corporate intrigue and various other twists and turns complicate the environmentalists' quest to stop the project.

"The reason for writing it -- besides that I'm passionate for writing -- was to find a means to tell these incredibly important stories to an audience that might not necessarily be reached another way," Legault says.

"The mystery genre reaches a really broad segment of society. ... I wanted to find a way of using that genre to communicate something that was important to me, without beating people over the head with the story."

Environmental or ecological mysteries aren't new, says Frances Thorsen, the owner of Chronicles of Crime, a mystery bookstore on Fort Street. Most environmental mystery novels have found a way of embedding a message into the book. Carl Hiaasen's series of novels, often classified as "environmental thrillers," are a good example of this, Thorsen says. Another widely popular environmental mystery book is John Grisham's The Pelican Brief.

"That was perfect. It took place in Florida and was about oilsands," Thorsen says. "And Grisham's got another one, The Appeal, which deals with chemical toxic waste. So it's becoming more and more available to the public. These are all books that have messages, but are written in a way that people can enjoy reading them."

Many environmental novels -- and many other books these days -- are printed on recycled paper, or come as e-books or audio books, to reduce their environmental impact.

NeWest Press printed The Cardinal Divide on 100 per cent recycled ancient forest-friendly paper. Because of this, it was recently reviewed as part of the 2009 Green Books Campaign in which 100 bloggers reviewed 100 books printed in environmentally friendly ways.

The event was sponsored by Eco-Libris, a company that encourages green publishing. Legault supports a similar organization called Canopy, which encourages newspapers, book publishers and others to use environmentally friendly paper products.

Thorsen says mystery novels normally revolve around intrigue, puzzles and characters trying to right a wrong.

"Characters in other ecological mysteries are people like park rangers and that sort of thing, so they're dealing with animals. The Cardinal Divide deals with land," she says.

Many environmental mystery novels have been set in the U.S., Thorsen says. She says Legault's Blackwater character, the hard-drinking and surly farm-boy-turned-activist, is unique in the genre.

This is also one of the first environmental mysteries set in Canada, with locales that include Vancouver's Gastown, Ottawa and various Alberta towns.

NeWest will publish the second book in the series, in March. Called The Darkening Archipelago, it tackles the controversial issues that surround salmon farming in B.C.

Although The Cardinal Divide is fiction, the issues associated with open-pit coal mining at the Cardinal Divide are real. Legault first became involved in the fight to stop development near the divide in 1995, while a board member at the Alberta Wilderness Association. He began writing the book in 2003, and it was published in October 2008.

The book also touches on the future of small, industry-based communities, and asks the question "What happens when resource-based industries end?"

Legault's father was a mine-shaft surveyor, his grandfather a tinsmith and a plumber underground. Legault grew up in an underground coal mining town in Ontario, where he saw the boom-and-bust economy at work.

"When the mine moves on, the company is fine. The company goes to a new location. But the people are left behind. That's the struggle the people are dealing with in The Cardinal Divide," Legault says.

There's a scene in the book, where Blackwater is sitting on sun-warmed rocks and looking out over the Cardinal Divide, watching a mother grizzly and her cubs cross a small meadow. It's a wonderful picture, full of detail.

The meadow on which Legault based the scene no longer exists; it has been taken up by a mine. Two mines have been built, with three more in the works for the area.

Legault refers to the Cardinal Divide, now a provincial park, as "an island of wilderness in a sea of development," surrounded by industry for nearly 20 kilometres.

"When I started writing the book, that landscape was intact. Today, we've lost the opportunity for that. To me, the book is a eulogy to a landscape that people fought long and hard for, for many years," he says.

"Hopefully it's a message for other people trying to protect other places, desperately threatened by mining."

Read Steve Carey's blog at timescolonist.com/rethink.

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READING LIST

Frances Thorsen of the mystery book store Chronicles of Crime suggests these book series thatrevolve around environmental issues:

- Anna Pigeon series by Nevada Barr. In the first book, Track of the Cat, a park ranger solves murders often related to environmental or resource issues.

- Joe Pickett series by C. J. Box. In the first book, Open Season, a Wyoming game warden deals with greedy business interests and local corruption.

- Grady Service series (a.k.a. Woods Cop series) by Joseph Heywood. In the first book, Ice Hunter, a conservation officer in Northern Michigan uncovers a mystery involving diamonds.

- Rachel Porter series by Jessica Speart. In the first book, Gator Aide, a failed actress turned Fish and Wildlife Service agent in New Orleans must deal with a dead alligator chained to a bathtub, not far from a dead stripper. Intrigue awaits.

- Doc Ford series by Randy Wayne White. In the first book, Sanibel Flats, Marine biologist and ex-NSA operative, Doc Ford, solves mysteries.