National Network for Equitable Library Service

Montreal's Hochelaga district is in the grips of gentrification and its drug dealers and prostitutes are fast disappearing. Inspector Vanier, investigating the brutal death of a drug dealer, suspects the neighbourhood cleanup may involve murdering the unwanted. The local Police Commander is only concerned with declining crime rates and his improving career prospects, and is willing to go easy on a local militia group that is expanding its influence. When Vanier is suspended for brutality, he is on his own.

Inspector Luc Vanier is drinking his way through Christmas Eve when he is called out to investigate the murder of five homeless people. His investigation takes him into the backrooms of the Catholic Church, the boardrooms of Montreal's business elite and the soup kitchens and back alleys of street life in winter.

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.

Worlds collide when a naïve young heiress takes a tumble for a bootlegger with a murderous temper and his business partner falls in love with Montreal, the way Americans are prone to do. One world war has ended and a second is in the wings. In the space between, the neon-powered city on the St. Lawrence is notorious for its lavish nightlife, obsessive gambling and evident corruption.

How to survive the unthinkable? This is the question nine-year-old Tom has to face after witnessing his father kill his mother and then turn the gun on himself. After the horrific event, Tom refuses to speak. At first, he moves in with his childless Aunt Sonya, but she is ill equipped to deal with the traumatized boy. Before long, Tom is forced to move again, this time to downtown Toronto, where he shares a rundown house with his mercurial Aunt Rose and his reckless yet endearing Uncle Will. Claremont is a gripping story of survival.

*2013 SCOTIABANK GILLER PRIZE LONGLIST* A sharply original debut collection, How To Get Along With Women showcases Elisabeth de Mariaffi's keen eye and inventive voice. Infused with a close and present danger, these stories tighten the knot around power, identity, and sexuality, and draw the reader into the pivotal moments where-for better or for worse-we see ourselves for what we truly are.

Days of Moonlight takes place mostly in Turkey between 1924 and 2010, and spans the lives of three generations who move as refugees from Crete to Izmir and finally to Toronto. The novel centres on the life and loves of Mehtap, a woman in her mid-twenties with a delicious sense of humour. While working as a secretary at a zipper factory in Izmir, she falls madly in love with her boss for whom she has to lie and wrap presents for his mistress and his wife. Her love for him doesn't change when she also falls in love with her friend, Nuray.

Centuries from now, in a post-climate change dying boreal forest of what used to be northern Canada, Kyo, a young acolyte called to service in the Exodus, discovers a diary that may provide her with the answers to her yearning for Earth's past -- to the Age of Water, when the "Water Twins" destroyed humanity in hatred -- events that have plagued her nightly in dreams. Looking for answers to this holocaust -- and disturbed by her macabre longing for connection to the Water Twins -- Kyo is led to the diary of a limnologist from the time just prior to the destruction.

Kavita Gupta is a woman in transition. When her troubled older brother, Sunil, disappears, she does everything in her power to find him, convinced that she can save him. Ten days later, the police arrive at her door to inform her that Sunil's body has been found. Her world is devastated. She finds herself in crisis mode, trying to keep the pieces of her life from falling apart even more. As she tries to cope with her loss, the support system around her begins to unravel.

Matthew Reilly is a lonely priest haunted by secrets. Young Alison is the shy and devoted keeper of Daisy, a falcon that suffered an accident and can no longer fly. When they meet in a Boston parish, Matt tells Alison about the day a decade ago when he missed the plane out of Logan Airport that tore into one of the Twin Towers. What he hasn't told her is that among the victims was a son that no one knew he'd fathered. With no confidantes and close to exhaustion, Matt suffers a heart attack, forcing him to reflect on what's become of his life.