Short-listed for the 2011 Arthur Ellis Award for Best Crime Novel
Some bullets take years to find their mark… Former Toronto Detective Charlie McKelvey is puttering through the first year of his forced retirement. His tedious life is torn wide open when a friend enlists his help in locating a recent Bosnian immigrant who has simply disappeared without a trace. Her teacher and recent lover, Tim Fielding, suspects foul play. At first hesitant, McKelvey is quickly drawn into the case as the bodies and clues pile up. When the body of an unidentified woman turns up in Fieldings apartmentand Fielding is nowhere to be foundMcKelvey finds himself a prime suspect in an increasingly obscure murder investigation
Short-listed for the 2011 Arthur Ellis Award for Best Crime Novel
Some bullets take years to find their mark… Former Toronto Detective Charlie McKelvey is puttering through…
Toronto at the close of 1999. It is a time of change, but Detective Charlie McKelvey’s life is stuck on pause since the murder of his runaway son, Gavin. As his wife focuses on healing, McKelvey is burdened with guilt for his role in kicking the teen out of the family home—and his inability to move the case to resolution. Obsessed with the stalled murder investigation, McKelvey’s behavior becomes increasingly unhinged. He is convinced the person responsible for the murder is an ex-convict sent to Toronto to establish a chapter of a biker gang, The Blades. The question is, does McKelvey have the right man, or is he blinded by his grief? When unexpected illness forces McKelvey’s early retirement—and his wife heads to the west coast to live with a relative—the conditions are finally ripe for McKelvey to focus entirely on his plans for revenge. This novel explores the daily and random decisions we make and their consequences as it stares into the heart of grief and sees the impact violent crime has on all of us.
Toronto at the close of 1999. It is a time of change, but Detective Charlie McKelvey’s life is stuck on pause since the murder of his runaway son, Gavin. As his wife focuses on…
The sparsely populated Arctic is no stranger to murder. The fourth in the Meg Harris series follows Meg's adventures into the Canadian Arctic as she searches for the truth about the disappearance of her father when she was a child. Many years ago, her father's plane had gone missing in the Arctic and he was never seen again. What happened on that fateful flight? Thirty-six years later, her mother receives some strange Inuit drawings that suggest he might have survived. Intent on discovering the answers, no matter how painful, Meg travels to Iqaluit to find the artist and is sucked into the world of Inuit art forgery. Arctic Blue Death is not only a journey into Meg's past and the events that helped shape the person she is today, but it's also a journey into the land of the Inuit and the culture that has sustained them for thousands of years. Finalist for the Arthur Ellis Award for best crime novel.
The sparsely populated Arctic is no stranger to murder. The fourth in the Meg Harris series follows Meg's adventures into the Canadian Arctic as she searches for the truth about…
Winston Patrick, a successful lawyer but dissatisfied with his career defending the downtrodden of Vancouver's criminal world, trades in the courtroom for the high school classroom. Soon Winston's past life meets his present when a student accuses a fellow colleague of a teacher-student love affair. Reluctantly, Winston agrees to provide legal defence, but the case takes an even uglier turn: the student is murdered, making her alleged lover the prime suspect. And this is no ordinary student. With her family connections reaching as high as the Prime Minister's office, Winston and his friend Detective Andrea Pearson find themselves immersed in a murder investigation that could cause an international incident, if it doesn't cost Winston his own life first.
Winston Patrick, a successful lawyer but dissatisfied with his career defending the downtrodden of Vancouver's criminal world, trades in the courtroom for the high school…
Inspector Green is coping with an office job, still eager to get back into the day-to-day fray of policing. His chance comes when an unidentified woman is drowned in the Ottawa River. In her possession is a Medal for Bravery from a peacekeeping mission. As Green and his team dig deeper into the military past, Green finds himself sucked not only into the murky past of a peacekeeping unit but into the high-stakes present of a federal election race. What crime was committed in Yugoslavia more than a decade ago? Is someone still killing to prevent that secret from coming to light? And does the diary of a dead soldier hold the key?
Inspector Green is coping with an office job, still eager to get back into the day-to-day fray of policing. His chance comes when an unidentified woman is drowned in the Ottawa…
Victoria Morgan, violin virtuoso extraordinaire, and her devoted piano accompanist are on yet another European tour currently stopping in Vienna. While playing to a full house, Tory leaves the stage and disappears in the middle of this important concert, leaving behind a puzzled (and angry) audience. Why would a seasoned professional so intent on maintaining her well-established career do something so damaging? Especially after some very negative reviews from local press? Tory's decision to leave proves to be especially fatal to her career, since the rumours of her disappearance involve the accusation that Tory has committed the brutal murder of a high profile Viennese figure. While the press continues to hound everyone who knew Tory for answers, it appears she is running from them, the police and her long-suffering husband Oscar Lukesh, affectionately known as Rocky. Or is she? The action is set around the appearance of a mysterious score for a recently discovered violin concerto of incredible worth. Is it truly by Beethoven as the owner claims, and will Tory be the first to debut this dream violin piece, or are all of these things just hollow promises and a way to bait a trap? Now it looks like it's up to Rocky to help save Tory from herself and figure out who is committing the growing number of murders - if it really isn't his wife.
Victoria Morgan, violin virtuoso extraordinaire, and her devoted piano accompanist are on yet another European tour currently stopping in Vienna. While playing to a full house,…
Toronto in 1856 is industrializing with little time for scruple or sentiment. When Reform politician William Sheridan dies suddenly and his daughter Theresa vanishes, only one man persists in asking questions. A former suitor of Theresa's, bank cashier Isaac Harris has never managed to forget her, despite her marriage to another man. Thrust into the role of amateur detective, he must now struggle with the demands of his job and the shortcomings of the fledgling city police. He also faces the hostility of Theresa's powerful husband, a steamboat and railway magnate. Harris's search takes a grisly turn when, in a valley outside of town, he finds human remains decked in traces of Theresa's finery. If she is dead, who is responsible? And who cares to find out, apart from the man who wooed her too timidly and now would do anything to make up for it? Death in the Age of Steam whirls the reader through a richly realized Victorian landscape, from Niagara Falls to Montreal and north as far as the shores of Lake Superior. It's a world at once near and exotic, a world of noise and smoke and churning pistons, but a world still very familiar to denizens of the 21st century.
Toronto in 1856 is industrializing with little time for scruple or sentiment. When Reform politician William Sheridan dies suddenly and his daughter Theresa vanishes, only one man…
Accident or suicide? That’s the simple question put to Inspector Michael Green when a derelict stranger falls to his death from an abandoned church tower in a quiet river village at the edge of his jurisdiction. But when the victim turns out be a long lost son of a local farm family cursed in recent years by tragedy, madness and death, Green begins to suspect something far more sinister is at work. Probing the family’s past, he uncovers a toxic mix of rigid fundamentalism, teenage rebellion and a family secret so horrific that twenty years later, someone is still desperate to prevent the truth from coming to light.
Accident or suicide? That’s the simple question put to Inspector Michael Green when a derelict stranger falls to his death from an abandoned church tower in a quiet river village…
When an old man dies a seemingly natural death in a parking lot, only Inspector Michael Green finds it suspicious. Something about the closed case has caught his eye - why did the victim have a mysterious gash on his head, inflicted around the time of his death? Talking to the man’s family only increases Green’s curiosity. They are obviously hiding something about the old man, who lived in isolation as though avoiding painful memories. A search of his house turns up an old tool box with a hidden compartment containing a German ID card from World War II. Was the victim a Jewish camp survivor or a Nazi soldier trying to escape imprisonment? Or had he been a Polish collaborator who had sold his own people into slavery and death? Could someone have tracked him down for revenge? Even Green, with all his experience, could never have imagined the truth. The sequel to Do or Die is not only a tightly plotted police mystery, but a compelling tale of unhealed emotional wounds from a time of unspeakable atrocity.
When an old man dies a seemingly natural death in a parking lot, only Inspector Michael Green finds it suspicious. Something about the closed case has caught his eye - why did the…
In the sequel to Northern Winters Are Murder, it’s now high summer in Northern Ontario, where everyone is bear bait, even the bears. Gunshots chase Belle Palmer from her quiet forest paths. Then, on her remote lakeside road, the savage and unexplainable murder of an elderly neighbour puts her on guard against two-footed killers. Does the answer lie in the woods? In the alleys of the Nickel Capital? Or in the black rock moonscape of an ecological disaster area Belle’s investigations gradually uncover the sordid details of a sexual abuse scandal in a residential school years before that has left scars on its victim that can never heal. The horrifying truth and its deadly fallout may destroy many more lives before this tragedy reaches its last act.
In the sequel to Northern Winters Are Murder, it’s now high summer in Northern Ontario, where everyone is bear bait, even the bears. Gunshots chase Belle Palmer from her quiet…
There is a killer at work in the sleepy village of Cedar Falls. The peaceful order of puppet-maker Polly Deacon’s back-to-nature rural life is violently interrupted when she finds her best friend Francy’s abusive husband lying dead in the dump with a hole in his chest. What’s worse, Francy can’t remember what happened the night of the murder. The cops soon get involved…and in more ways than one, as Polly finds herself falling for hunky officer Mark Becker. Afraid that the police will arrest Francy for the murder and exasperated with their ineptitude, Polly decides that only she can get to the bottom of the mysterious murder. The situation comes to a head as the outspoken and resourceful Polly begins receiving threats to her life. As she searches for answers, Polly discovers that the puzzle often points inward and she is forced to question her values and her friendships. But where there is death, there is also grief and passion, and passion in Cedar Falls is never simple, and sometimes, as Polly discovers, it can also be deadly.
There is a killer at work in the sleepy village of Cedar Falls. The peaceful order of puppet-maker Polly Deacon’s back-to-nature rural life is violently interrupted when she finds…
