National Network for Equitable Library Service

Includes the novels Dirty Sweet, Everybody Knows this is Nowhere, and Swap

Road rage or a premeditated killing? Dirty Sweet is a fast-paced crime story that follows each character to a surprising end.

In Everybody Knows this is Nowhere, detective Gord Bergeron has problems. Maybe it’s his new partner, Ojibwa native Detective Armstrong. Or maybe it’s the missing ten-year-old girl, or the unidentified torso dumped in an alley behind a motel, or what looks like corruption deep within the police force.

Lethal Rage follows the journey of Jack Warren, a young Toronto police officer, as he enters the dangerous streets of downtown's 51 Division. Accustomed to the white-bread policing of his previous division, Jack is staggered when he first arrives at his new job. No TV show or movie prepared him for the reality of 51, where the officers wade through the filth of humanity on a daily--hourly--basis. Warren is immediately thrown into a war between the cops of 51 and a new crack cocaine dealer intent on taking over the downtown drug trade.

In Moscow, the truth can be a dangerous commodity. Ottawa bureaucrat-turned-diplomat Charlie Hillier is back. Having barely survived his first posting in Havana, Charlie is eager to put what he learned there to good use. And it isn't long before he's thrust into a fresh case--a technical writer from Toronto in a Moscow jail on dubious drug charges. Charlie has barely put a dent in the brick wall that is the Russian legal system when the jailed man turns up dead, the official explanation: suicide.

“A stylish noir.” — The Globe and Mail on The Drop Zone

Ride the Lightning: A fast, powerful read full of action, twists, and dark humour. Vancouver is teeming with two-bit criminals, drug dealers, and gangsters, and dope dealer Miro seizes an opportunity to settle his score with bounty hunter Karl while working a major drug deal. What follows is a ride through Vancouver’s underbelly with a cast of characters whose ambition exceeds their criminal acumen. With dialogue that crackles on the page, Ride the Lightning introduces a new voice in crime fiction featuring grit, realism, and a comedic touch.

A cinematic, fast-paced, and thrilling crime caper

Read the mystery series Booklist called “brimming with historical verisimilitude . . . with a richly detailed protagonist and a seriously compelling mystery.” This collection includes all three novels in this gripping police procedural series.

In this second mystery featuring Chief Inspector Peter Cammon, the veteran detective is called out of retirement once again. His assignment appears simple: travel to Canada to retrieve the body of a murdered Scotland Yard colleague. But Peter cannot resist delving into the oddities of the crime. His colleague was brutally attacked, run down by a car, and then dumped in a canal, yet the probable motive for the murder is bizarre: the theft of three letters from the U.S. Civil War era, one of them signed by the assassin John Wilkes Booth.

A dark and suspenseful debut. Detective T.J. Peterson has a problem, and it's not just how much he's drinking or the daily, silent, tormenting video calls from his estranged daughter. A Catholic priest has been bludgeoned to death in church, apparently by a symbol of his faith, and an unidentified woman's body had been found. He's barely holding it together. When a deranged teenager, a possible witness, crosses his path, he is propelled into a sleazy, violent world of underage prostitution, sexual abuse, and human trafficking as he pursues a merciless killer.

Twenty members of a cult are found massacred on an isolated island on Canada's West Coast. Their leader, Shiva Ram Acharya, is brought to trial, and the great Arthur Beauchamp defends him, assisted by his junior counsel Max Macarthur. Shiva claims to have amnesia and refuses to participate in his own defence. But Macarthur gradually becomes convinced of his innocence, embarking on the greatest challenge of his career--a dangerous quest for the true murderer--and falling under the sway of the brilliant, enigmatic Shiva. Is Shiva a madman or a messiah?