Walker was a good Canadian regional writer, and his Maritime Provinces were always convincing. Ever since Winter of Madness and Cab-Intersec, Walker has been writing like a parody of Ian Fleming crossed with Eric Ambler, and the latest, Ash, is a parody of himself. Almost literally so, in that Nigel Ash, "a traveler alone," a man who is driven "to defy the conventions and laws of society" (to be fair, these oldies but goodies are part of the dust jacket copy, and Walker may never have been given a chance to veto them), is writing a novel about a man who, having killed, is pursued through the Scottish Highlands, precisely the subject of Walker's own first novel, The Storm and the Silence. Now Ash is also pursued, in New Brunswick. If all of this also sounds like a pastiche from John Buchan, Walker leaves no doubt, for crucial...