National Network for Equitable Library Service

Dinah Galloway, budding diva, enthusiastic gourmand and amateur detective, is back. This time she has taken to the high seas with a gig in the lounge of an Alaska-bound cruise ship. Also aboard are her mother and her older sister Madge, a moody professor of First Nations art, an elderly woman with romantic intentions toward an even older man, an aspiring thief with gooseberry-colored eyes, and a priceless Native mask that seems to be attracting far too much attention. Also on the ship is Talbot St. John, class heartthrob, with whom Dinah has a running feud.

Nicole Patterson is a young, green and very eager probationary constable with the Ontario Provincial Police. Although she spends much of her time breaking up bar fights, giving out traffic tickets and finding lost kids, she dreams of one day becoming a detective. Late one bitterly cold winter night, she comes across the body of a young woman lying on the edge of a snow-covered field on the outskirts of town. The girl appears to have been strangled. Nicole recognizes the victim as a local high school student with a somewhat sullied reputation, the daughter of the town drunk.

In The Goddaughter Caper, Gina Gallo finds herself embroiled in her family's shady dealings when a body turns up at her uncle’s restaurant. But it’s just the beginning of her problems. Strange things keep happening in Steeltown. A body shows up in the trunk of Gina’s car. Another is mistakenly shipped to her cousin Nico’s new store. And then Gina and Nico stumble across a stash of empty coffins! Worse, everything mysteriously points to her own retired relatives from the Holy Cannoli Retirement Home. Gina is determined to get to the bottom of it.

Piano tuner Frank Ryan is paid in kind by an aging music teacher with an old manuscript that turns out to be Beethoven’s Tenth Symphony. Launched into a world of intrigue and violence, Ryan, an unlikely sleuth, realizes he must use his wits to conquer his enemies and solve the mystery of the manuscript. In the process Ryan discovers whom he can trust and what he is made of. The first in a series featuring Frank Ryan, Beethoven’s Tenth is a smart page-turner.

When a football player from Riley Donovan's school falls to his death from the top of a recreation center, a hunch makes her wonder if he was pushed. But who would do such a thing, and why? Riley’s detective aunt tells Riley to leave it alone, but that's not in Riley’s nature. When her friend Charlie is accused of the murder, Riley is determined to clear his name, even if it means confronting vicious junkyard dogs, forming an alliance with an old enemy, and putting her own life in danger.

When the daughter of the most powerful Mafia don in New York goes missing, the don’s right-hand man comes to Gulliver Dowd for help. Problem is, the right-hand man and Dowd despise each other. Plus, the don knows who murdered Dowd’s sister, Keisha, but refuses to share that knowledge with Gulliver. Still, Dowd makes a devil’s deal and hunts for the girl. Old secrets and lies boil to the surface, threatening to destroy the lives of everyone involved. But who has the girl? An eccentric art professor, or one of the don’s many enemies?

When a young woman goes missing on a nature trail, small-town journalist Claire Abbott is first on the scene, as usual. The clues to the woman’s whereabouts are misleading, but Claire has a sixth sense, what the fire chief calls a “radar for crime.” Trusting her intuition, Claire insists that the search and rescue team look elsewhere for clues to the woman’s disappearance. When they fail to follow up on her lead, she pursues it on her own, embarking on a snowy chase up a mountainside that puts herself and others in danger. She’s more than just a journalist chasing a story.

When heroin-addicted call girl Elizabeth Lucy dies in a fall from a swanky penthouse terrace, homicide detective Henderson is assigned to the case. Was it murder? Suicide? Through his investigation, Henderson uncovers a frightening underworld that is far more dark and dangerous than those of prostitution and the drug trade. But more than anything, this is Elizabeth’s story. Told through flashbacks and those who knew her, revelations unfold, revealing a life that ends with a struggle unlike any other. A masterful debut, The Pyx has earned considerable praise in Canada and abroad.

Finally, after 58 years The Body on Mount Royal is back in print, starring hard-drinking private dick, Russell Teed. From the back cover of the 1953 edition: Take a brutally beaten body, a lonely spot on Montreal's famous mountain, and a buxum brunette whose embrace brings treachery. Add a large dose of vicious gang warfare and a slice of underworld life. Mix these ingredients well and you have a large helping of spicy, fast-paced adventure.

"It's been a long time now, nearly two years since we met at that party." "Yeah," Tessie said bitterly, "and nearly five years since I was a clever little girl who thought she'd found a way to make a hundred dollars. There was only going to be one time. I needed the dough. Two months later I didn't have an excuse any more and I was still doing it. Still am." A blindingly blonde woman walks into private detective Mike Garfin’s downtown Montreal office, complaining that she’s being followed by a man.