National Network for Equitable Library Service

Winner of the 2004 ForeWord Book of the Year Award 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.

Being promotions director of a large shopping mall isn’t the most stress-free job on the planet, but Jenny Turnbull enjoys it and is darn good at it. But her job becomes quite a bit more gruesomely stressful when an unseen gunman goes on a spree in a bloody food court massacre during her special Hallowe’en promotion. And the situation gets totally out of hand when it turns out that the surviving victim, whose life is hanging by a thread in hospital, is the deadbeat son of a powerful, vindictive and grudge-carrying local city councillor.

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.

Over eighty per cent of Canadians live near a body of waterand that means when Canadians turn to crime, somebody usually ends up all wet. In this anthology of original crime fiction, editors Violette Malan and Therese Greenwood celebrate that most Canadian of locations: the ocean, lake, or river near you. With tales set across Canada, by award-winning authors like James Powell, Rick Mofina and Barbara Fradkin, and even a crossover story from fantasy writer Tanya Huff, you may just find your next vacation spot… or maybe not.

Remembrance Day is a proud day for Camilla MacPhee’s good friend, Mrs. Violet Parnell, one of five thousand Canadian women to go overseas during World War II. But the next day she has vanished. Camilla, with only a few letters and documents to guide her, follows her friend to Tuscany, chasing though historic towns, across high promontories and along steep mountain roads. Vanishing old partisans and Allied aircraft crash sites keep Camilla hopping as she tries to find Mrs. P. before someone with a deadly serious reason to keep the past hidden finds her first.

The starter’s gun explodes, and Hollis Grant excitedly begins her very first marathon race, only to stumble almost immediately over a body lying in the road, the body of the Reverend Paul Robertson, her soon-to-be ex-husband. When the crush of runners passes and the medics arrive, it becomes clear that the Reverend has not collapsed from the rigours of the race, but has been brutally stabbed.

In the sequel to Down in the Dumps, Polly finds herself touring as set and puppet designer for a small rural theatre company. When the stage manager mysteriously fails to appear for the first rehearsal, Polly has to step in and do the job. The full-time employment is welcome, but the work is hell. Dealing with a cast of viciously feuding actors, a mysterious practical joker whose tricks are decidedly gruesome, and a deepening conviction that the stage manager has been murdered, Polly finds her new job more than a little stressful. Where’s the stage manager’s body?

After more than thirty years as the muckraking publisher of the Coast Chronicle on the B.C. shoreline, Albert Sloan made plenty of enemies. But when his body is found hanging in an apple grove off Settlers Road, the Mounties waste no time ruling his death a suicide. At the urging of Sloans widow, reporter Pat Ross is drawn into an investigation of Sloans last days.

In the third Belle Palmer mystery, Belle takes her friend and employee on a snowshoe trek. Miriam MacDonald brings her spoiled mini-poodle, a gift from investment broker boyfriend, who promises huge returns on her life savings. Later that week, Miriam discovers Elphinstone bludgeoned to death in his condo. Although Miriam’s fingerprints alone are found on the Inuit sculpture murder weapon, the collapse of Elphinstone’s empire has ruined hundreds of people and made him many dangerous enemies.

Music may soothe the savage breast, but in this fifth collection of witty and wicked crime fiction from the Ladies’ Killing Circle, music provides the background for tales of murder and mayhem. Eighteen stories by Canadian women crime writers along with poems from Joy Hewitt Mann take their inspiration from titles as varied as the upbeat "Wake Up Little Suzie" through the romantic "Summertime" and musicals such as "There’s No Business Like Show Business". It’s a collection you won’t want to put down until you’ve read every one and hummed all the tunes.