National Network for Equitable Library Service

This is the spellbinding story of six young dreamers who set out from Vancouver in the seventies to haphazardly establish a back-to-the-land commune on a small island in the Salish Sea. Against all odds, the dream endures for half a century through fierce internecine squabbling, occasional community uproar, births and deaths, disasters in animal husbandry, the War in the Woods, RCMP raids, and the blandishments of oily developers. But throughout it all what abides is the land itself, its gifts and spirits and seasonal graces.

Wedding bells, a grisly murder, and a defecting Russian spy bring drama to King's Cove in the newest Lane Winslow mystery, a series that the Globe and Mail calls "terrific." A wedding is on the horizon for Lane Winslow and Inspector Darling. As one of the few Russian speakers in her community, Lane is obliged to act as translator and hostess for Countess Orlova, an elderly Russian woman who has tracked her missing brother to the Nelson area. Nelson PD investigates, but then the murder of a lone hunter in the hills above King's Cove takes top priority.

Set in Vancouver in 1907, Better the Devil You Know is the outrageous tale of three unique and curious characters: the small-time con man who passes himself off as an evangelical preacher, the scrawny lady of the night whom he reluctantly befriends, and the five-year-old hellion left in his care by a former lady friend.

#1 Canadian Bestseller on CBC Books. "Iona Whishaw's Lane Winslow is much more than B.C.'s answer to Armand Gamache. A smalltown sleuth with a background in international espionage, Winslow's latest escapade takes her from Nelson to France and Mexico on her most thrilling adventure yet." —Sam Wiebe, author of The Last Exile and the B.C. Bestseller Ocean Drive. The latest mystery in the series Publishers Weekly calls "highly entertaining" sees Lane trekking through Mexico while the team back in Nelson pursue an open and shut and then open again kidnapping.

Vancouver is in an uproar over the death by gunshot of a Scottish nanny, Janet Stewart. An almost deliberately ham-handed police investigation has Constable Hook suspecting a cover-up. The powerful United Council of Scottish Societies is demanding an inquiry. The killing has become a political issue with an election not far away. The city is buzzing with rumours.

With events spanning both world wars, the tenth installment in the Lane Winslow mystery—which first began with the bestselling adventure A Killer in King's Cove—series is a transatlantic tale of sibling rivalry—infidelity—and espionage. It's an early morning in May when Lane is pulled from a deep sleep by a concerning phone call from Scotland—her grandfather has had a heart attack. Lane hastily makes plans to fly overseas, and a dejected Inspector Darling prepares himself for a stint of bachelorhood.

It all starts with an impossibly large set of tracks—footprints for a creature that could not possibly exist. The words sasquatch, bigfoot and yeti never occur in this novel, but that is what most people would call the hairy, nine-foot creature that would become a lifelong obsession for Aidan Fitzpatrick—and in turn—his granddaughter Sandy Langley.

A quirky, thrilling, darkly-funny page-turner that explores the fuzzy lines between sanity and insanity, magic and reality, love and duty. It's 1969. An eight-year-old girl, Elizabeth Squire, has a choice to make: to be disabled by the circumstances of her own botched birth or to become extraordinary. In Buffy Cram's captivating new novel, Elizabeth narrates the story of her childhood in the late sixties, describing how she came to be at a Vancouver halfway house at the age of nineteen.

"Required reading for any person troubled by our world right now."—Maureen Medved. Jake's life is shaped by the Spanish Civil War and the not-so-civil wars that go on within families and intimate relationships. With engaging wit and originality, David Spaner does for Vancouver what writers like Mordecai Richler and Philip Roth did for Montreal and Newark. Jake Feldman grows up on Keefer Street in the dynamic working-class immigrant neighbourhood of Strathcona in Vancouver.

"The best Iona Whishaw novel yet."—Castlegar News. Beginning with a bang, the latest mystery in the series Publishers Weekly calls "highly entertaining" is a study in bygone promises and lingering prejudice. A warm June afternoon in King's Cove is interrupted by an explosion. Following the sound, Lane goes to investigate. Up a steep path she discovers a secluded cabin and, hiding nearby, a young Japanese girl injured and mute, but very much alive.