"An extraordinary book. This dignified, just and unbearable account of the dark heart of Sri Lanka needs to be read by everyone." — Roma Tearne, author of Mosquito

The tropical island of Sri Lanka is a paradise for tourists, but in 2009 it became a hell for its Tamil minority, as decades of civil war between the Tamil Tiger guerrillas and the gove …

Through the braided narratives of three spirited characters, this novel bears witness to the infamous “American” crime that metastasized uber-civilized Montreal. Everyone wants a Marin at her party. Bohemian and beautiful, this engineering student is as passionate about constructing sets for theater and opera as she is about Trey, the one man s …

The World Tribunal on Iraq (WTI) was a collective effort involving hundreds of people from all over the world, most of them never having met in person. Inspired by the Bertrand Russell Tribunal of the Vietnam War era, WTI aimed to record not only the crimes against the Iraqi people, but also crimes committed against humanity. With contributions fro …

When Rob Ferguson went off to the five former Soviet ’Stans of Central Asia to work on a project to save the rapidly disappearing Aral Sea, he expected to have challenges and adventures, but he didn’t anticipate ending up a suspect in a brutal murder investigation. Dancing with Vodka Terrorists is a tragicomic farce and an engrossing real-life …

LIla is dead. And the likely suspects are all men: her flash-in-the-pan literary husband, a washed up golf pro turned criminal with a cocaine habit, and two small-time thugs looking for the perfect score. As a crime novel for a new age, this is sex, drugs, and a story that unfolds as a map of bad intentions. In One Hit Wonders, Patrick Warner weave …

Claude Tremblay works as a political analyst at the International Criminal Court at The Hague. But when the Congolese warlord Kabanga, accused of crimes against humanity, is released from trial due to a procedural error, Claude resigns his post and follows the accused back to his home country in search of justice. In The World, the Lizard, and Me, …

The second novel in the Marko della Torre series, Killing Pilgrim is a propulsive political thriller following a complex plot hatched by members of the CIA and set against the backdrop of war-torn Yugoslavia.

Early autumn, 1991. Croatia and Slovenia officially declared independence from Yugoslavia, and war is imminent between the Croats and the Serb …

A page-turning thriller shot through with black humour and razor-sharp dialogue, Zagreb Cowboy is the spectacular debut novel in a taut new crime fiction series.

Yugoslavia, 1991. The State is crumbling, and in the midst of the political chaos secret policeman Marko della Torre has been working both sides of the law — but somewhere along the way h …

In the third installment in Alen Mattich’s highly addictive Marko della Torre series, Alen Mattich delivers a powerful political thriller that depicts the horrors and machinations of the Yugoslav civil war and the humanity of those who survive it.

Autumn 1991. Civil war has broken out in Yugoslavia with Croatia’s declaration of independence, and …

In early-1980s Vancouver, Ivan Henry was an ex-convict still adjusting to civilian life when he was detained on a break-and-enter charge. A short time later he found himself on trial for ten charges of sexual assault—crimes he vehemently denied committing. Henry spent twenty-seven years in prison before a 2010 DNA test proved his innocence and se …

Patrick Wiseman moved his wife and son back to Newfoundland to start a new Pentecostal church, but when his wife Anne leaves him for a man she meets on Facebook and his son Hab moves in with his girlfriend Natalie—a burgeoning alcoholic with a fiery past—Patrick takes a suicidal leap of faith that brings him face to face with his estranged fath …

A virus destroys the communication network of the Canadian diplomatic service. Carson Pryce, a reclusive, moody intelligence analyst, and Rachel Dunn, a brilliant diplomat with a glowing humanitarian track record, are implicated in the event.

For years, Carson has been secretly obsessed with Rachel, and abuses his privileged access to intelligence i …

It is easy to get a criminal record. Simply being accused of a crime will lead to police making a record (usually called incident or occurrence report) of the event, even if no charges are laid. And if police do decide to lay charges, which they will do if they have the slightest belief that the person is guilty, fingerprints and photographs are ta …

"There are rules for what I've done. Specific punishments for crimes against friendship."

Laren Olivier knows the rules, but her attraction to a friend's ex-boyfriend is strong. She tells herself that if she and Scott can keep their new romance a secret, no one will get hurt. But Laren is not the only one with something to hide.

Thus begins a year-lo …

A car is discovered underwater at a Rideau Canal lockstation near Kingston, Ontario. Within it are the bodies of three sisters—Zainab, Sahar, and Geeti Shafia—along with that of their presumed aunt, Rona Amir Mohammad. The stories told by parents Tooba Mohammad Yahya and Mohammad Shafia, and their eldest son, Hamed, don't match up with the rapi …

Short listed for 3 Saskatchewan Book Awards:Non-Fiction Award, Saskatoon Award, Book of the Year Award. On the morning of 5 December 1933, a young RCMP constable discovered a grisly scene in the Avalon schoolyard in rural Saskatchewan. A young boy lay dead in a rented car, an apparent victim of carbon monoxide poisoning. In the car with him were hi …

A person doesn't have to do anything important to get recognition anymore; it's enough to know someone who does. Parasitic fame. Casey was more than just a dependable camp counselor dedicated to her little buddies in Cabin Three. She was a brilliant student looking forward to a scholarship and a future career in entomology. Casey wasn't the kind of …

At the heart of Victim Rights is Dooley’s girlfriend Beth, whose loving presence is a constant reminder to keep on the straight and narrow, away from the unsavoury life and shady characters that peopled Dooley’s past. But when rumours start to swirl about Beth’s possible unfaithfulness, Dooley’s world is pushed to the brink – and it’s u …

White Pine nominee, 2009Spinetingler Magazine Award Nominee, 2009 Canadian Children's Book Centre Our Choice, 2009A boy maybe twelve years old, on a bike, stopped next to Dooley, looked at the kid sprawled on the pavement and said, "Is he dead?""Yeah, I think so," Dooley said. In fact, he was sure of it because there was no air going into or coming …

In the mountains of Colombia, an old man stumbles sweating and breathless into the Jaguar Forest. Cursed, he feels forced to commit a savage act, and a family is destroyed – his own. From Luis Mendoza’s insanity survivors emerge, but they will not know what their grandfather intended for them, even though they were the ones destined to die. Dec …

Living with the Hawk explores the traumatic events in the life of Blair Russell, a high school football player who struggles to do what’s right in tough circumstances. Key characters are his brother, Blake, the team’s quarterback; Jordan Phelps, the star receiver, a kid with a need to control others; Paul Russell, his father, an Anglican priest …

Root Causes is a dramatic murder mystery that begins when Clare’s fiancé, Leo, dies in a tragic car accident. Clare soon discovers that his death, and his life, may not have been what they seem. Caught up in a maelstrom of events and now fleeing for her life, Clare escapes to Leo’s secret, unfinished vineyard. The mystery of Leo’s life grows …

Why do we keep secrets and why do we confess them? The nine tales in this collection, all told in the first person, are each spun around a well-kept secret, willingly or inadvertently confessed. Sometimes the secrets are at the core of the narrator’s life, other times they appear tangential. Regardless of the magnitude of its burden, the confessi …

This collection presents an arc of historical experience of Jewish child and teen life during the Shoah. Across Central and Eastern Europe, the young and hunted in these stories hide in forests; survive in ghettoes and camps; and assume new identities. The stories in this collection depict children as creative, resilient, aged-before their time, as …

A group of tourists gather in Namibia. Some have come to holiday, others to murder. Canadian Kate ditches her two-timing boyfriend and heads to Africa on a whim, hoping for adventure, encountering the unexpected and proving an intrepid adversary to mayhem. The tour is led by Jono, a Zimbabwean historian and philosopher, and the travellers follow hi …

As long as there have been people willing to believe the unbelievable, people have been duped. In the best storytelling tradition, readers can follow the tales of:

• How the Nazis planned to destroy the British economy during World War II by flooding the world with millions of fake British banknotes • How an infamous radio broadcast had American …

Willie Sutton was casing a bank when he noticed that the manager looked a lot like Sutton himself, so he walked into the vault, loaded up with banknotes, and calmly walked out. D.B. Cooper hijacked a plane, demanded $200,000 in payment, and parachuted from the aircraft. He was never captured.

Other criminals in this book were no less brazen: - Arthu …

After losing yet another tae kwon do tournament, Jinho gives in to his anger and breaks his opponent's fingers. While this gets him barred from competing at his dojang, it also gets him scouted by Austin, a trainer for an underground mixed martial arts club. At first the prospect of fighting without boundaries appeals to Jinho, but the more involve …

In 1913, Toronto launched Canada’s first woman’s police court. The court was run by and for women, but was it a great achievement? This multifaceted portrait of the cases, defendants, and officials that graced its halls reveals a fundamental contradiction at the experiment’s core: the Toronto Women’s Police Court was both a site for feminis …

A novel about Montreal during the not-so-halcyon era of a couple of decades ago when gangs and girls made rum-running and slot machines big business.
from the 1950 edition

Ronald J. Cooke’s second novel, The Mayor of Côte St. Paulis the tale of a struggling writer living in Depression-era Montreal. Winnipegger Dave Manley arrived in the city thi …

Véhicule Press launches its Ricochet Series of vintage mysteries with The Crime on Cotes des Neiges—a hardboiled detective novel set in Montreal originally published in 1951. At the centre of this novel, and two others by David Montrose, is the hard-drinking, hard-working private dick, Russell Teed.

First Edition 1951 back cover:

There were two b …

The Scarborourgh takes place over three days in 1992: Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday—the weekend 15-year-old Kristin French was abducted and murdered by Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka. In poems both opulent and stricken, ravishing and unflinching, Michael Lista—nine, at the time—revisits those dates, haunted by the horrifying f …

One of the earliest Canadian noir novels, Sugar-Puss on Dorchester Street tells the story of Gisele Lepine, beautiful farmer’s daughter who leaves her sleepy faming community for the neon lights of Montreal. In the fast-paced city, dreams quickly turn to nightmares as the young ‘farmette’ finds herself surrounded by drug-dealers, newspapermen …

Spud Sweetgrass and his friends Connie Pan and Dink the Thinker are back. And this time Spud is in some frigid trouble. One morning Spud sees a terrible crime. And he can't get it out of his mind. Detective Kennedy wants him to tell her what he saw, but he's afraid of the man with the most beautiful hair in the world -- afraid for himself, and afra …

The latest from Governor General’s Literary Award winner Perrine Leblanc is a mesmerizing story about the disappearance of three young women and a deeply disturbing portrait of a small town gone bad.

In between the mountains and the sea, on the north shore of the Baie des Chaleurs, there’s a village called Malabourg. The village is surrounded by …

Following the deaths of her husband, Corey, and ten year old daughter Ellie in a traffic accident, author Abby Miller sinks ever deeper into depression. She contemplates suicide as a way to be with them, and to end her unrelenting pain. In a last desperate effort to find peace, she drives to Loon Lake where they last vacationed together, wanting to …

Banished from his homeland for a crime he didn’t commit, Thorvald Stronghawk knows selling the Frisian beauty he’s captured will bring him the blood money needed to regain his good name. When the man who accused Thorvald of the crime is the one buying Gisela, Thorvald must decide what he wants more: To recover his reputation among his fellow co …

Canadian suspense fiction.

In the complicated interaction between sport and law, much is revealed about the perception and understanding of consent and tolerable deviance. When a football player steps onto the field, what deviations from the rules of the game are considered acceptable? And what risks has the player already accepted by voluntarily participating in the sport? …

Jane Yeats, a crime journalist with a passion for hard-boiled adventure, is forced to confront the murder of her lover, Pete, when the imprisoned killer says he falsely confessed to the crime.

In Bad Date, crime journalist Jane Yeats is on the scene again, full of her trademark smart-ass attitude and fondness for Irish ale -- not to mention her problems with her next door neighbour, a crack-addicted prostitute whose body comes to rest on Jane's front lawn one morning. Our reclusive sleuth’s life accelerates faster than her new Harley a …

Inspired by the life of Doctor Maude Elizabeth Seymour Abbott, The Heart Specialist is the story of a woman pursuing her dream at the dawn of the twentieth century. Stripped of a regular childhood when her father is accused of a horrific crime and abandons the family, Agnes was never considered ladylike. She is drawn to the wrong things, such as an …

These eight true tales explore the dark side of 20th-century prairie history. A Saskatchewan farmhouse is burned to the ground to conceal the brutal murders of a family of seven. A German prisoner-of-war camp in Medicine Hat is the scene of savage Nazi killings. A convicted killer is given a day pass out of prison for his birthday, only to escape a …

Exclusive bundle of books 3, 4, and 5 in the wildly popular Ava Lee series.

This bundle includes:

In The Wild Beasts of Wuhan, Uncle and Ava are summoned by Wong Changxing, “The Emperor of Hubei” and one of the most powerful men in China, when he discovers that the Fauvist paintings he recently acquired are in fact forgeries.

Ava uncovers a ring o …

Charlie and his family are about to embark on another trip, to another out-of-the-way place off the beaten path. This time they are heading to an island in Croatia, a country Charlie has never even heard of. An incredibly beautiful country that lives in the shadow of war and conflict.

Even for a seasoned traveler like Charlie, Croatia is a very diff …

In Life Without Death, the latest short story collection from Peter Unwin, ordinary men and women search for meaning in lives subject to change, chance, coincidence, and catastrophe.

A man recalls a lifetime of love and loss while copying contacts out of his old little black book. A woman is left her dying father's secret stash of pornography, and …

Liz Ryerson believes that Hillcrest Village, her Toronto neighbourhood, is quaint and quiet, but stumbling over a corpse while walking her dog dissolves that illusion for good. When she realizes that she actually knew the dead man, a real estate broker who appraised the building she coowns with her philandering ex-husband, she becomes obsessed with …

Meet Jane Yeats. She’s a still-grieving widow who smokes and sometimes drinks too much. Jane is also an acclaimed business writer who supports herself exposing corruption among the business elite.

In this first mystery Jane is asked to investigate the murder of a highly unpopular developer. The prime suspect is his estranged gay son. The murderer …

An expert takes us inside the dark world of gangs in Canada.

Dr. Mark Totten has spent fifteen years learning all about these gangs and the young men and women who belong to them. He has interviewed over 500 gang members across the country, traced their lives from infancy to adulthood, and explored the roots of their involvement in crime and their r …

Grace Marks, the Victorian servant who inspired Margaret Atwood's Alias Grace ... Elizabeth Workman, a Sarnia housewife who turned on her abusive husband and paid the price for it ... Evelyn Dick, a glamourous 1940s party girl who Hamiltonians still talk about ... These are just some of the murderers featured in Lethal Ladies, a collection of accou …