An East End Story

In dream analysis, the image of a house often represents its owner’s sense of self. But what does it signify if you’re the house’s realtor? Elizabeth Ruth’s latest novel, Semi-Detached, explores this question and more. Set in 2013, the clever cozy mystery follows Laura, a middle-aged real estate agent who has been tasked with selling an older home — a “charming white wood frame with green trim”— in Toronto’s East End. Why? Six months prior, the reclusive owner, ninety-four-year-old Edna “Eddie” Ferguson, fell into a coma, and “there was no outstanding mortgage, no will or next of kin, and the property taxes were long overdue.”

Laura arrives to scope out the house alone while a blizzard rages. The “swift and brilliant” white‑out recalls the Great Snowstorm of 1944, a real-life event that blanketed the city in fifty-seven centimetres of snow and killed twenty-three people. (It...