The #1 international bestselling crime thriller that introduces Belgian detective Pieter Van In, "a brusque cop with every bad habit you can think of" ( The New York Times Book Review).The beautiful medieval architecture of Bruges belies the dark longings of her residents. When the wealthy and powerful Ludovic Degroof's jewelry store is robbed, nothing is stolen, but the jewels have been dissolved in jars of aqua regia, an acid so strong that it can melt ev...

This lyrical tale of a young man's first foray into adulthood offers "a moving ode to the city of Chicago and the singular nature of its people" ( Booklist, starred review)On the last day of summer, a young college grad moves to Chicago and rents a small apartment on the north side of the city, by the lake. This is the story of the five seasons he lives there in the late 1970s, during which he meets gangsters, gamblers, policemen, a brave and garrulous bus ...

A collection of humorous short stories from the award-winning author of The Plover and Mink River.Welcome to the peculiar, headlong world of Brian Doyle's fiction, where the odd is happening all the time, reported upon by characters of every sort and stripe. Swirling voices and skeins of story, laughter and rage, ferocious attention to detail and sweeping nuttiness, tears and chortling—these stories will remind readers of the late giant David Foste...

In this spirited collection of essays, Brian Doyle employs his wit, wisdom, and gusto for life as he shares with readers his thoughts on Jesus, the Mass, Birds, Bees, and so much more. What would be a good alternative name for Jesus? What does a honeybee at Mass have to tell us about Christ? What is, after all, the real point of saying prayers when someone is suffering?Through the good and the bad, the serious and the hilarious, Doyle finds just the right story and just the right w...

In this award-winning paean to country life we find Hubbo O'Driscoll, whom we first met in Easy Avenue, now living in the lower Gatineau with his guardian aunt and uncle. When the local covered bridge -- home to a wayward ghost and her lovelorn postman -- is threatened by development, Hubbo must devise a strategy to save it.

Behind the glamorous facade of elite Belgian society lies a seedy world unseen by the public eye—but nothing stays hidden foreverInspector Pieter Van In is begrudgingly finishing up a healthy lunch when he hears the news: While restoring their farmhouse, the Vermasts have found a skeleton in the backyard. Van In, who happens to be married to the deputy public prosecutor, is determined to solve the case in double-quick time and squeeze in one last vacation before the...

In the second novel by the international bestselling Pieter Aspe, Inspector Van In races against the clock to thwart a series of terrorist plotsOne quiet snow-covered Sunday morning in Bruges, a prominent business executive is found dead in the streets, apparently due to an alcoholic hemorrhage, but for Inspector Van In, there is something about the autopsy that does not add up. When he questions the businessman's friend, a Dutchman, he too is found dead the next m...

Brian Doyle was a one-of-a-kind author who wrote one-of-a-kind prayers about everyday subjects that help readers change the way they see the world.Prayers for cashiers and good shoes; for shorter sermons and better senators; prayers for the bruised, foolish, glorious, stumbling, brilliant Church; for chaplains and mathematicians; for idiot authors and muddy dogs: These are the most heartfelt and headlong prayers you will ever read and share—the grinning, snarling prayers we mouth q...

In these eleven original stories, characters bravely face the challenges of settling into a new life.In this wonderful new short story anthology, eleven of Canada's top children's authors contribute stories of immigration, displacement and change, exploring the frustration and uncertainty those changes can bring. Told in first-person narratives, this collection features a diverse cast of boys and girls, each one living at a different point in Canada's vast...

Brian Doyle might just be the most passionate storyteller in America. In this eclectic and compelling collection of stories Doyle writes about his discovery of the incarnated Spirit of God every time he turns around, often in the most unlikely of people, places, and things. In 37 short snapshots, he captures the spiritual essence of everyday life from the perspective of a committed Catholic who loves his faith, his family, his community, and his church, even with all their warts and failin...

Proems, taut tales, small stories with rhythm and blues and grace and bruise and laughter between the lines. Brian Doyle’s The Kind of Brave You Wanted to Be is a book of cadenced notes on the swirl of miracle and the holy of attentiveness; a book about children and birds, love and grief and everything alive, which is to say all prayers.

It’s 1960. In a small logging town called Calamus that’s about as far in the middle of nowhere as you can get, Wade Curren, star of the high school baseball and football teams, is content living out his role of local hero, holding court in the corner booth of the town diner where his girlfriend Lorna waits tables.Lorna, working to support her family, is plotting her escape from their small town. Fiercely independent and an avid reader of the kinds of books that aren’t taught in sch...