Why tinker with tacit two-timing entente?

Thin Air, Winnipeg’s long-running writers festival, hits the ground running with a full slate of events in the coming days.

At 7 p.m. tonight at McNally Robinson’s Grant Park location, the festival’s Signature series kicks off with the launch of Jenny Heijun Wills’ book Everything and Nothing at All, a collection of essays on beauty, language, reading, love and family that serves as a companion piece of sorts to her 2019 memoir Older Sister. Not Necessarily Related. She’ll be joined in conversation by fellow author and University of Winnipeg professor Lindsay Wong. The launch is free, and will be streamed on McNally Robinson’s YouTube channel.

The fest’s first MainStage event in some years takes place Wednesday at 7 p.m. at Ilipvik at WAG-Qaumajuq (300 Memorial Blvd.). MainStage events typically bring a range of writers together under an overarching theme — in this case relationships. Featured authors are 2024 Giller longlisters Caroline Adderson and Shashi Bhat as well as E. McGregor and Oonya Kempadoo. Admission is $15, with tickets available at wfp.to/CbI.

On Thursday from 3:30-4:30 p.m. at the Bill and Helen Norrie Library (15 Poseidon Bay), Free Press columnist Niigaan Sinclair will discuss themes and ideas in his book Wînipêk: Visions of Canada from an Indigenous Centre as part of the festival’s Big Ideas series. The event is free, although registration (at wfp.to/Cbz) is recommended.

Kang Jiyoung’s Mrs. Shim is a Killer (Harper Perennial, 320 pages, $25), originally published in Korea in 2010, is absolutely delightful.

Shim Eunok, a 52-year-old widow and mother of two, is barely making ends meet. When the butcher shop at which she works closes unexpectedly, throwing her out of work, Mrs. Shim answers a help-wanted ad posted by the Smile Private Detective Agency. Much to her surprise, she’s hired on as a contract killer.

What a charming character is Mrs. Shim: soft-spoken and unassuming, but a wizard with a sharpened blade. She’s not cold-hearted, just coldly analytical: she needs money, and killing pays well.

The novel, beautifully translated by Paige Morris, isn’t exactly a comedy, but neither is it one of those dark, gloomy thrillers. In fact, it’s a lot of fun.

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: My wife has been having an affair and it’s been so poorly executed that I actually know the guy’s addresses — both home and work. I have been checking him out recently, and I just found out how much money he earns.

Here’s my problem: I would expose him to his spouse, but he diverts my wife away from nastier ways of getting me back for my little extramarital adventures.

My wife is not the sharpest tool in the shed. She’s just very good-looking in some obvious ways and looks after our kids very well.

So what should I do?

The Bishnoi Gang, which is run by a convicted gangster from his prison cell in India, appears to have gained a foothold in Manitoba.

A civil forfeiture lawsuit filed in the Court of King’s Bench this month has revealed a 36-year-old man, who was arrested this year, had claimed he is a member of the Bishnoi Gang when he tried to extort cash from a Winnipeg resident.

Arshdeep Singh Brar was arrested by Winnipeg Police Service officers in Headingley on March 3 and charged with extortion and two firearms offences, says the claim.

The victim, identified in the court documents as a man of South Asian descent, had gone to police.