Back Channel
The Frank Yakabuski Mystery Series Book 5
Ron Corbett
Ottawa Press and Publishing Mystery
October 2025
Back Channel by Ron Corbett has the return of Frank Yakabuski. The plot has seventeen-year-old Meaghan McKenna not believing her mother died by an accident in the Springfield River and thinks it was murder. Detective Frank Yakabuski is soon drawn into a labyrinth of family feuds, lost land grants, and a string of murders stretching back generations. As Yakabuski and his partner, Donna Griffin, dig deeper they uncover a conspiracy rooted in the region’s colonial history — one that powerful men will kill to protect
Elise Cooper: What would you say is the difference between this series and the Danny Barrett series?
Ron Corbett: Danny Barrett is younger than Yak, and more mysterious (we don’t know his real name, for example.) Because he’s an undercover cop, Barrett also moves from place to place, whereas Yak is very much rooted to one place – the Northern Divide.
EC: How did you get the idea for the book Back Channel?
RC: The idea for Back Channel has been kicking around for several years. Some of the passages in the book are pre-pandemic. I have always been interested in Colony Roads, which were roads built in Canada in the mid-1800s, meant to encourage settlement. There is one near Ottawa, where I live, that was never completed. Many of the colony roads were never completed, the job being too tough, and the land (for the most part) too inhospitable. There was a lot of misspent money, and downright graft, at many of the colony roads. I thought a book with flashbacks to the building of a colony road would make a good Yakabuski mystery.
EC: Describe Frank?
RC: Frank is like a lot of old fishing guides I know around Algonquin Park. He is tough, and competent, a skilled outdoorsman, someone you can rely on and trust. He has no hidden demons, no night sweats, and is a champion for the underdog. He often wrestles with the contradictions surrounding justice fairness and free will.
EC: What exactly is the Back Channel?
RC: The Back Channel in the book is a channel on the Springfield River, a fictional place that is the main setting of the book. It is the place that a Colony Road was supposed to reach but never did, the Back Channel being too remote and rugged. It is a bad-land place.
EC: How would you describe McKenna?
RC: Meaghan McKenna is a teenage girl wise beyond her years. Smart, sassy and feisty, imagine her with a North Ireland accent and a chip on her shoulders as big as Belfast. She also starts and finishes the book, and her family story – the McKenna’s received a land grant on the back channel and came in the mid-1800s – is crucial to the mystery. You need to know the McKenna family story if you are going to solve the present-day mystery of who is killing people along the Back Channel, and why.
EC: What is the role of Rachel Dumont in the series and how would you describe her?
RC: Rachel Dumont is an adult Meaghan Mckenna. The two women are very similar, and they become friends by the end of the story. Rachel is twice Meaghan’s age, so obviously more mature, more experienced, perhaps less feisty, but there are more similarities than differences between them. Rachel is the daughter of Gabriel Dumont, a notorious bandit from the Upper Divide and both women know the scorn and derision that comes from being the child of a criminal; from being raised in a place like the Back Channel.
EC: Why go back to the timeline 1865?
RC: The 1865 flashbacks, which tell the story of the doomed colony road and the settlers who were abandoned after the project was cancelled, is key to solving the present-day mystery of the book –- why are people being killed along the Back Channel? Those flashbacks are clues. They also provide a nice backdrop to one of the themes of the book – the past never truly goes away.
EC: What is the role of Yak’s father in the story, how would you describe him?
RC: Yak’s father is a retired cop who was shot during an armed robbery and is now in a wheelchair. He is very much like his son and often helps Yak with his cases, telling him where to look or clues, or highlighting something he may have misinterpreted, or missed. Readers familiar with Ragged Lake, the first book in the Yakabuski series, may remember it was Yak’s father who told him where to look for the final clue that explained why a murdered family had moved to the remote village of Ragged Lake in the first place. Yak’s father does a similar trick in Back Channel.
EC: Next book?
RC: I have both a Barret novel and a Yakabuski mystery half written, and I’m not sure which one I’ll finish first. I’ll play around with both this winter and the answer should come to me. I may be leaning more toward finishing the Barrett story, though, as it might make sense to alternate the books, going back and forth from Yak to Danny, which is the pattern that has emerged. The Barrett story also takes place in Florida and may require research. Depending upon the winter, maybe much research.
THANK YOU!!
