In 1957, Hamilton is a city steeped in memories of the Second World War and other conflicts. Eighteen-year-old Jack Crandall is becoming obsessed with learning more about his father, a Canadian soldier who abandoned him and his mother, and died in the Dieppe Raid. He finds a kind of father substitute in Walter Haffner, the taciturn German army veteran he works for. But when a Canadian army vet is found beaten into a coma, Jack has to accept that Walter may not have forgotten the war despit...

A finalist for the Best First Novel Award at the Arthur Ellis Awards“Sins don’t destroy people here. Dreams do.”Enter the premier’s old friend Harry Asher—lawyer, former hockey star, self-styled intellectual, and recent divorcé—who is hired to dig into the incident. And it isn’t long before Asher’s investigation threatens to expose a chain of corruption that implicates many of the province’s most powerful citizens—including the province’s legendary now-senile ex-premier—as ...

Viv is a woman of many sides — smart but easily misled, practical but given to odd ideas, calculating but prone to pitfalls, interested in ideas but a shallow thinker, insecure and vulnerable but determined and hard, capable of strong friendship but also capable of saying, "Loyalty is a means to an end."She and her husband live in a condominium in Western Canada in a place that resembles Edmonton, Alberta. Extremely frustrated by having to live with decisions made by the condo boar...

Includes author-curated discussion questions!Mark Lisac’s Image Decay returns to the pugnacious world of backroom politics laid out in his award-nominated Where the Bodies Lie. Set again in that “unnamed capital city east of the Rockies,” where the Brutalist architecture of the downtown core reflects the body politic laid bare.When a cantankerous ex-government photographer seeks ownership of his prints, the powers-that-be are determined to...

“Sins don’t destroy people here. Dreams do.”In a small city somewhere in an oil-rich Canadian province just east of the Rockies, a political scandal has erupted: an aging cabinet minister has struck and killed a member of his local constituency executive with his half-ton truck, in broad daylight. But the premier suspects that there is more to this “accident” than meets the eye—and he wants to know the real reasons behind it before the media or his political rivals do.Enter...

A gritty, private-eye series begins on the streets of Vancouver, from an award-winning new crime writer.Dave Wakeland isn't the usual PI. A 29-year-old ex-cop, he makes a habit of bad ideas. Chelsea Loam falls squarely into that category. Chelsea disappeared eleven years ago, leaving a trail leading towards career criminals and powerful men. Taking her case quickly starts to look like a good way to get killed.Whatever ghosts drive Wakeland, they drive him in...

“This story is irresistible.” — Publishers WeeklyThe ninth book in Emery’s Collins-Burke Mystery series follows the famed Clan Donnie in light of their youngest member, twelve-year-old Bonnie MacDonald’s, strange disappearance.Twelve-year-old Bonnie MacDonald — the beloved stepdancing, fiddling youngest member of Cape Breton’s famed Clan Donnie band — vanishes after a family party. No one thinks Bonnie ran away. Maura MacNeil, cous...

From the author of the New York Times bestseller The Last One at the Wedding—a sweet coming-of-age story about young love that’s an “endearing, full embrace of the late 1980s” (USA TODAY) and a delightful blend of humor, heart, and the universal experience of growing up.Fourteen-year-old Billy Marvin is living the dream of every nerd in New Jersey. His days are filled with endless debates over pop culture icons, late-night video game prog...

The second instalment in the Lane Winslow mystery series; for fans of the Maisie Dobbs and Bess Crawford series.On a snowy day in December 1946, Lane Winslow—a former British intelligence agent who’s escaped to the rural Canadian community of King’s Cove in pursuit of a tranquil life—is introduced to the local hot springs. While there she overhears nearby patrons speaking Russian. When one of those patrons is found dead in the change room, Lane’s linguisti...

“Told with such humour and suspense that it’s hard to put down . . . A rare achievement, an unstintingly honest, hilarious, and dreadful delight.” — Globe and MailGreer Pentland is having a challenging year. Her teenaged son, Sam, is on trial for the murder of two senior citizens, a crime allegedly committed while he was sleepwalking. Greer is also battling breast cancer, a disease that has left her with a litany of physical side effects and deep anger tow...

2017 Arthur Ellis Award, Best First Novel — WinnerA dark and suspenseful noir thriller, set in the Yukon.As winter closes in and the roads snow over in Dawson City, Yukon, newly arrived journalist Jo Silver investigates the dubious suicide of a local politician and quickly discovers that not everything in the sleepy tourist town is what it seems. Before long, law enforcement begins treating the death as a possible murder and Jo is the prime suspect....

A Guatemalan journalist is kidnapped, and the only message from her kidnappers is the murder of her lawyer. In a race against time, Luc Vanier sets about reconstructing her life, through the sordid world of human trafficking, the secretive underbelly of a multinational mining corporation, and the hiding places of desperate refugees. When Vanier is brutally warned off the investigation, he throws away the rule book and goes after the villains with a vengeance.