Review of "The Light of Faded Stars" by Francis-Adrien Morneault

Score: 96/100 (9.6 out of 10)

They say that people reveal their deepest, darkest thoughts when they're at life's end and have nothing more to lose. Imagine hearing the deepest, darkest musings of a murder detective who has seen and experienced the very worst that humanity has to offer!

The Light of Faded Stars is a compelling, beautifully written, and immensely eloquent crime fiction/detective mystery novel by Francis Adrien Morneault!

This may be among the best written and thought-provoking books of the year (so far)! This book reads as so raw, real, authentic, and genuine that we almost thought that it was a sort of memoir or pseudo-memoir. We were actually under the impression that the author was genuinely writing this on their deathbed, confessing all of this! When a work of fiction immerses readers so well that it convinces them that it's real (or might be real), that's when you know you've found a great one!

The Light of Faded Stars is a rich, philosophical detective novel that blends a murder investigation with meditations on memory, mortality, despair, and beauty. It's not just a mystery story — it's an elegy to life itself, viewed through the tired, poetic eyes of an aging detective, Jack Willington.

Jack long worked as a detective (rising to the rank of detective sergeant).

Jack, who (if remember correctly) is about 80 and on his deathbed at the time of telling this story, pays special attention to his partner in crime-fighting, Marcel Beauchemin (a detective constable), a man who always had interesting thoughts and things to say.

At the surface, the plot follows a typical murder investigation: the murder of a young woman, Evie MacMurrough, discovered in an alleyway in Saint John. But underneath, this novel is a meditation on death, the past, loss, time, and the crumbling architecture of human lives.

The story mixes linear storytelling with vivid memories, philosophical tangents, and emotional reflections. The structure intentionally mirrors memory itself: winding, digressive, and profound.

Where do we even begin with this novel? It's dense—a motherload of content and thoughts packed into less than 180 pages. You can read this book in one night! In fact, many of us did, and it was a pleasure (not a chore).

So, do we start with the final murder case itself?
The relationship between Jack & Marcel as they solve these crimes?
Or Jack on his deathbed—one foot with the living and one foot with the dead?

Let's start with the case itself. Although the case—arguably the main plot—occurs mostly in the background, it sets the tone for everything and helps to put things into perspective. This case isn't just another murder case and Evie isn't just another murder victim. Evie reminds the partners of people they know and love. Her death isn't treated as a mere statistic; it becomes deeply personal, stirring memories of Jack’s daughter and of Marcel’s own haunted past with Sharlene. She represents not just a young life lost, but the fragility of all dreams, the sudden finality that could strike anyone. Solving her murder becomes, for Jack and Marcel, a symbolic fight against the darkness that looms over every human life—a last act of meaning in a world fraying at the edges. One of the most beautiful little things that gets thrown in here is that Jack and Marcel begin referring to the victim as "our girl."

Such a beautiful and emotional touch!

No, she isn't just the victim in the case they're working on, she's an actual person who once lived, breathed, hoped, and dreamed. She had people loved her and people who miss her.

This is also the last hurrah that Jack & Marcel have together as crime-fighting partners, whether they want it to be or not. Fate has its way of self-correcting and having its way regardless of how we feel or what we want.

Early on, it is discovered that Evie had an abortion just before her murder, something which Marcel sees as the key to cracking the whole case. The culprit and ultimate villain of the novel, who we won't spoil here, represents a lot more than just an evil man doing evil things. He actually represents the role of culture and society in either keeping our inner-monsters at bay or nurturing goodness, compassion, and mercy.

Culture and society can convince us that our evilest actions, thoughts, and desires are justified, or they can guide us on a more righteous, peaceful, happy path. What are we bringing up future generations to think and believe? Are we teaching right and wrong? Good and evil? Are we bringing up and facilitating a generation of peacemakers and caretakers or warmongers and murderers?

One of our favorite (of many) great quotes in this book is:

"We all carry a labyrinth within us, and at its center, a Minotaur, a monster of old, hiding in the dark, waiting to be unleashed. Civilization is just the thin walls built around that labyrinth to keep the monster at bay."

In other words, evil isn't just this mysterious force out there. It's familar. It's intimate. It's inside all of us. We can choose what we do with it—whether it sees the light of day or not.

Evil lurks in the human heart and mind ("a monster"/"a Minotaur"), but it's up to us whether it causes us to act with malice; for example, Cain choosing to give in to jealousy and anger in murdering his brother, Abel.

The book says a lot about the universality of human feelings, emotions, and experiences including the instinct of a mother to love and want to protect their child. When Evie's mother implores the detectives to solve her daughter's murder case—something which initially seems like a typical and mundane scene—we get the line: "In some strange way, her words felt like a call that echoed from the depths of time."

It's about more than solving a case. It's about family. It's about a mother who lost her daughter.

The real highlights of this book (to us) were the incredible quotes and passages. Here are a few of our favorites. Many of them are self-explanatory and digestible (despite their flowery language) and most of them are from Marcel:

"The detective is a being that walks in both worlds. One foot with the living, one foot with the dead."

"Detectives are always late, perpetually late. We meet the dead, and then we chase backward, trying to grasp at the living shadows they left behind. We can never truly save them; we can only piece together what they lost."

"Of course, in a way, we are all gamblers. We invest everything in one thing or in multiple things, just like gamblers. A relationship, a sport, a career. But, in the end, the house always wins."

It's eye-opening to think about how true this passage is. We might not be addicted to gambling. We might not do drugs. We might not be criminals. But we're all caught up in something that's taking something from us. Combat and contact-sport athletes shorten their lives. Pro bodybuilders know they're sacrificing a lot for the game via steroid use. Relationships and marriages are expensive, not just in terms of money but also time, attention, and energy. Careers often rob us of personal and leisure time (along with some degree of our freedom).

"Maybe we are all detectives, trying to piece together the fragments of our lives, desperately trying to make sense of them before time runs out."

It's interesting how this quote is also true in a lot of ways. Yes, Jack and Marcel are both actual detectives, but they are also people trying to figure out things in their own lives (such as Jack with his daughter, Grace, and Marcel with his repressed memories of Sharlene and in war). It also conscripts the reader into the idea that they're "detectives" trying to figure out things all the same. Furthermore, Jack is also literally dying and trying to figure out as much as possible before he expires.

"The sun sets on everything, Jack. On every life, every dream, every hope. Nothing escapes it."

In other words, some things (like death and taxes) are inevitable.

"At the beginning of a chess game, players conform to opening theory because it statistically increases their chances of survival. It's the same with life: people conform to traditions and systems because it gives them the illusion of safety, of improving their odds against chaos."

We really loved this quote because it spoke to us. Most chess players follow predictable patterns? Why? Because these formulas are time-tested. They usually lead to success or preferred outcomes. Similarly, many families want their kids to be doctors and engineers—people who make a lot of money and have (mostly) stable careers and employment opportunities. However, what about the kid who wants to start the next Amazon, Tesla, or Apple? What about the kid who wants to innovate, create, and invent the next big thing in science or technology?

There was a time when every football team was trying to run from the I-formation or wishbone, now those formations are rarely used. Times change. We adapt. We evolve.
Doing the same old thing isn't going to work forever.

At the same time, these same things provide comfort, security, and familiarity. They've worked before, so they should work again, right?

It's amazing how we can take so much away from one little, somewhat tangential passage in this book.

This book also does a remarkable job at using literary techniques and figurative language, particularly personification, similes, and metaphors. Here are a few of our favorites:

"Time forgives no one. Everything gets carried away by its ravenous and unscrupulous currents."

"The city stretches with colorful sunlight as it struggles to awaken."

(By the way, Fog City is a bit of a character in its own right)

"Around my childhood village, nature reigns over the lands like a greedy queen over her fiefdom, and villagers must fight back."

"Marriage is like a land bridge connecting two separate islands. At first, it’s strong and full of promise, but over time, the tides of life erode it, piece by piece, until only memories remain of how close the islands once were."

"She was all that the mysterious shore promised and all that it took away. A dream glimpsed from the distance, a future swallowed by the tide. You look out at the sea and you think it holds something for you — freedom, hope, escape. But the ocean gives and the ocean takes. She was a bright, burning thing in a dark world, a brief miracle that the universe reclaimed before she could leave her mark. She was a shore we could never reach, a place we could never truly save."

This book also has a lot of interesting side stories. For example, there's an interesting one about a blue whale who swallows a family. There's another about a little girl who gets locked in an upstairs room only to be forgotten, vanish, and become a ghostly enigma in the community. There's yet another story about a young store robber who went through juvenile detention and emerged to become a store manage (ironically).

These all play into the themes of the book.

If there's one thing about this book that may turn some readers off, it's that it seems unfocused. There are a lot of distractions from the main murder mystery plot (for example, the philosophical musings and little stories). We can imagine that a portion of the audience may find this tedious and cloying, causing the story to spin its wheels rather than moving forward.

There was a part of us that was tempted to find this a bit tedious. In fact, it started to remind us a little bit of Driving For Justice by Justin Kojok, a book that had to remind us over and over and over and over and over and over again about its thesis statement(s) as if we didn't get that "everything tells a story" and that "it's not the destination, it's the journey" the first three-dozen times.

Like, can we get on with the plot already?

However, The Light of Faded Stars never quite reaches that level of redundancy and fluffiness. It's a great read with a lot to say!

Check it out on Amazon!