CSI Alberta
Ten gripping tales of murder and missing persons show how skulls and skeletons reveal their secrets to forensic investigators. A skull is found on a scree slope high above the mirror-calm waters of Spray Lakes. Bones rumoured for years to be buried in a Medicine Hat backyard are finally dug up. The trussed and tortured skeletal remains of an unknow …
Dirty Thirties Desperadoes
In October 1935, three prairie farm boys embarked on a deadly trail of robbery and murder that stretched across three western Canadian provinces and made newspaper headlines from coast to coast and as far away as Los Angeles. By the end of the spree, seven people were dead, including the fugitives themselves and four law-enforcement officers. For t …
Zee's Way
Zee and his friends are angry that their old haunt has been replaced by stores that are off-limits to them and storekeepers who treat them with distrust. To let the merchants know what he and his friends think, Zee paints graffiti on the wall of the hardware store. After the wall is repainted, Zee decides to repeat the vandalism, but this time with …
Bad Medicine
Early in his career, Judge John Reilly did everything by the book. His jurisdiction included a First Nations community plagued by suicide, addiction, poverty, violence and corruption. He steadily handed out prison sentences with little regard for long-term consequences and even less knowledge as to why crime was so rampant on the reserve in the fir …
Reena
Shortlisted for the 2009 George Ryga Award.
This is the story of an average family that has never been the same . . . since its eldest child was swarmed and killed by her peers on a moonlit night, November 14, 1997 . . . It is the story of what sudden and horrific violence can do to a family, and how a family somehow remains intact in the face of …
Rescue Dogs
These stories of crime and rescue, by retired park warden and dog trainer Dale Portman, highlight the vital role dogs play in saving lives, upholding the law and recovering bodies. Portman describes the escapades of Canadian Rockies park warden Alfie Burstrom and his canine partner, Ginger—the first certified avalanche search team in North Americ …
El plan de Zee
Zee y sus amigos están furiosos porque su refugio de siempre ha sido reemplazado por tiendas que no son para ellos y porque los vendedores los tratan con desconfianza. Para que los comerciantes sepan lo que Zee y sus amigos piensan, Zee pinta un grafiti en la pared de la ferretería. Cuando lo borran con pintura, Zee decide repetir el vandalismo, …
Scum
Megan’s brother, Danny, is dead. Killed in an apparent robbery in a bar. It seems like a terrible but simple case of mistaken identity, of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. But as the truth comes out, Megan realizes that Danny was “known to the police.” He was in much deeper than she realized, and the police are not motivated to sol …
Above the Falls
In May 1936, George Dalziel flew far up the Nahanni River to check on Bill Eppler and Joe Mulholland, who were working one of his traplines. He found their cabin burned to the ground and no sign of them anywhere. What had happened to the healthy young men? Had there been an accident, or was a killer on the loose?
Dalziel, known as The Flying Trappe …
The Death of Albert Johnson
Albert Johnson was a loner, a deadly shot, who in 1932 triggered a gruelling manhunt that has become an Arctic legend. For over six weeks, amid blizzards and numbing cold, he eluded a posse of trappers, First Nations and RCMP, who for the very first time used a two-way radio and an airplane in their search.
Johnson was involved in four shoot-outs, …
Smugglers of the West
Do you think the smuggling of drugs and people is a new phenomenon in Canada’s west? Think again! Between the mid-19th and mid-20th centuries, many daring smugglers carried contraband goods and people into western Canada across the US–Canada border or into BC from Asia. Smugglers of the West tells the dramatic tales of the bold criminals who sm …
Given
The characters from Susan Musgrave’s A Cargo of Orchids are back in this brilliantly engaging novel. Rainy, the Mexican-American woman, and Frenchy, the African-American, along with Musgrave’s narrator X have returned and convincingly insist their story is not done. Once inmates on death row, now reunited and hanging out at an old house in a BC …
A Crowbar in the Buddhist Garden
Stephen Reid has grown old in prison and seen more than his share of its solitude, its vicious cycles, and its subculture relationships. He has participated in the economics of contraband, the incredible escapes, the intimacies of torture, the miscarriages of justice, and witnessed the innocent souls whose childhood destinies doomed them to prison …
Dibidalen
A primitive story of transgression and transformation weaves its way through the centuries and cultures into the lives and conflicts and personal dramas of our own time. Seán Virgo traces its journey and the guises it takes on, reinventing itself as fable, fairy tale, ghost story, and fantasy — spellbinding entertainments that engage all the sam …
Tough Case
Sixteen-year-old Dane and his mom have relocated to Nova Scotia hoping to flee an abusive relationship with Dane’s father. In the midst of this, Dane has been getting into trouble with the law. He’s been caught breaking into and vandalizing an elderly woman’s home and is about to be charged with a host of serious offences unless he participat …
The Third Riel Conspiracy
It is the spring of 1885 and the Northwest Rebellion has broken out. Amid the chaos of the Battle of Batoche, a grisly act leaves Reuben Wake dead. A Metis man is arrested for the crime, but he claims innocence. When Durrant Wallace, sergeant in the North West Mounted Police, begins his own investigation into the man’s possible motives, he learns …
paper SERIES
An unhappy orphan who finds solace in paper cut-outs of her parents, an Indian doctor who displays his medical degree in his taxi cab, and waiters who tamper with fortune cookie are some of the vibrant characters who are brought to life in this anthology of six monologues that revolve around paper. From drama to comedy to crime-thriller, Yee brings …
Always Kiss the Corpse
"Duncan and Szanto bring their A-game to this daring and complex novel."—Lou Allin, Crime Writers of Canada
Sandro Vasiliadis, a nurse at the Whidbey Island General Hospital, has died of an apparent heroin overdose. When his grieving mother bends over to kiss her son’s corpse at the viewing, she shrieks, “That’s not Sandro!” Convinced tha …
Black Sun Descending
Silas Pearson is plagued by nightmares. In them, his wife, Penelope, who has now been missing for four years, shows him where murder victims are buried across the Colorado Plateau. One such dream leads him to the Atlas Mill tailings site, outside Moab, Utah. There, Silas discovers the corpse of anti-uranium-mining activist Jane Vaughn, who went mis …
Scammed
When Greg Lothian’s mother and famous artist father are scammed of their life savings by cruel con men, his orderly life is torn apart. When the same criminals steal Greg’s own identity, the normally law-abiding Victoria, BC accountant turns his analytical mind to plotting revenge. This uncharacteristic decision plunges him into the strange and …
Never Sleep with a Suspect on Gabriola Island
In this new mystery series set on the islands off the coast of British Columbia and Washington State, Noel Franklin and Kyra Rachel team up to form Islands Investigations International. Quickly they come to realize that some crimes respect no boundaries.
Their first job takes Noel and Kyra to Gabriola Island and the unsolved murder of an art galler …
Seaweed in the Soup
Silas Seaweed is back on the beat as the street-smart Coast Salish cop. A gardener is found dead and the prime suspects are two young local party girls. Silas is handed the case that soon takes a bloodier turn when a policeman’s wife is killed. Silas begins to suspect that these murders and other events are related to the recent tide of gang-rela …
Seaweed on the Street
Pretensions, conspiracy, lies ... all play a part in this riveting book that kicks off TouchWood Editions’ new mystery series featuring Coast Salish investigator Silas Seaweed.
A billionaire’s daughter with an unsavoury past has mysteriously disappeared. Silas Seaweed, a savvy, street-smart investigator based in Victoria, B.C., is put on the ca …
The Vanishing Track
When his best friend, and advocate for the homeless, Denman Scott asks him to help stop the demolition of the Lucky Strike—a once majestic hotel in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside that is now home to nearly three hundred of the city's least fortunate residents—Cole Blackwater gets more than he bargained for.
Working with Vancouver Sun reporter Nan …
Deadly Accusations
Transit cop Casey Holland is back investigating crime on Mainland Public Transit buses. Someone is smashing the windows of moving buses on the M6 line, while racial hatred between preteens on the M10 threatens to erupt into all-out war. The murder of Casey's co-worker Jasmine Birch escalates the hostilities, and the staff begins to suspect one anot …
Dirty Work
Gulliver Dowd is a little person in a world of hurt. After his sister, an NYPD policewoman, is murdered, he becomes a licensed PI. Dowd is shocked to discover that his mysterious new client is Nina, his high-school girlfriend and the one true love of his life. But the real surprise is yet to come. Nina hires Gulliver to find her runaway daughter, c …
The Slickrock Paradox
Silas Pearson is looking for answers. It's been more than three years since his wife, Penelope de Silva, disappeared while working on a conservation project in Utah's red rock wilderness. Law enforcement authorities have given up hope of finding the adventurous Penelope alive. And some suggest that she may not have vanished into the desert at all, …
The Unknown Masterpiece
Inspector Aliette Nouvelle's romantic life is in tatters. This sad fact becomes a heavy distraction as she goes back and forth from France to Switzerland, trying to determine who killed a Basel art gallery security guard found at a gay gathering spot on the French bank of the Rhine. A damaged painting of a shoemaker found near the body motivates th …
I dreamt...
Children whose daily lives are afflicted by violence dream of a different world in this powerful book created by Mexican artists as a fundraiser for the IBBY Fund for Children in Crisis.
In many parts of the world, including North America, children are living with violence. Wars, gangs, guns, crime, bullying, harassment and fear keep many kids from …
The Rain Barrel Baby
Inspector Frank Foote's quiet Winnipeg neighbourhood is greening into summer when a dead baby is discovered in his neighbour's rain barrel. The tiny body has evidently been in the rain barrel for some time, and there are no obvious leads in the case. Frank is a cop, and he's seen a lot of crime scenes, but this one is a little too close to home. Me …
The Geranium Girls
Beryl Kyte, a letter carrier who lives in the Winnipeg neighbourhood of Norwood Flats, goes out for a hike one beautiful spring Sunday and literally trips over a body in the woods of the St. Vital Park. It's a dead woman with mushrooms sprouting in her mouth. In a panic, Beryl struggles out to the main road and manages to hail a cellphone-toting pa …
Robbers!
Determined to beat the odds, professional thieves spend their lives figuring out ingenious ways to steal other people’s possessions.
In ROBBERS! you’ll uncover the dirt on eight cunning master thieves, including: -Master-of-disguise Willie Sutton, who robbed banks in costume -D. B. Cooper, who hijacked a plane, demanded $200,000, and parachuted …
Sobering Dilemma
This fascinating history of alcohol consumption in British Columbia focuses on two periods of harsh liquor prohibitions: first on its Native population from 1854 to 1962, and second, on the entire population, during the 1917 to 1921 period. Using formerly closed police files, Douglas Hamilton traces the scandals, corruption and crime that resulted …
Pleasantly Dead
Trevor and Margaret Rudley have had their share of misfortunes at The Pleasant Inn, the cherished Ontario cottage-country hotel they've owned for twenty-five years. There have been boating accidents, accidental poisonings, and then there was that unfortunate ski-lift incident. But this year their hopes are high for the summer season. However, barel …
The Girl in the Wall
After leaving the Winnipeg Police force, former Inspector Frank Foote has gone into home renovations. Tearing down a wall on a Norwood Flats job one day, he and his partner come across the skeleton of a small female who has been imprisoned there. They alert the police, who confiscate their tools and remove them from the crime scene. Frank doesn't t …
Sleight of Hand
On a dare from his girlfriend's brother, Javvan steals a neighbor's car. Now he’s got a criminal record and a bigger problem: get a job or violate his parole. Endless interviews later and no one will hire him because of his criminal record. Whatever happened to a second chance? Finally, he gets a gig with a contractor named Kevin, and Javvan figu …
Vancouver Kids
Children and teenagers stroll between the skyscrapers in Vancouver, and experience the city in a different way that adults do. They have helped Vancouver transform from humble trading post to towering metropolis, yet how often are they asked to tell their side of the story? Vancouver Kids is a collection of tales about the unforgettable young peopl …
Savour
ReLit Long Shortlist, 2015
Savour is the follow-up to Bateman’s award-winning debut novel, Nondescript Rambunctious, and the second book in a trilogy about a dark, suspected serial killer named Oliver. Savour retains the dark threads of sociopathic depravity that ran through the debut novel, but is once again tempered with a tender ray of humanity …
About Canada: Poverty
For a country as wealthy as Canada, poverty is utterly unnecessary. In About Canada: Poverty, Jim Silver illustrates that poverty is about more than a shortage of money: it is complex and multifaceted and can profoundly damage the human spirit. At the centre of this analysis are Canada’s neoliberal economic policies, which have created conditions …
Brunch with the Jackals
A man seeking the high life realizes too late that he has destroyed his possibilities for happiness. Four junkies wait anxiously for a drug dealer who seems to have forgotten their existence. A gang leader attempts to navigate racism, greed, and mutiny within the ranks. An aspiring writer assesses and obsesses over a crime close to home as a young …
The Blue Dragon
A murder at the Blue Dragon, a small apartment building in San Francisco’s Chinatown, prompts the absentee owner to hire Chinese American Peter Strand to calm the anxious tenants. But Strand isn’t exactly what he appears to be. Neither are the tenants, who on the surface seem to be regular people going about their lives. Strand, a forensic acco …
Cat and Mouse
A woman is shot dead while looking for her dog in a woodlot below her house. But local vet, Dr. Erica Merrill, who heard the shot, and her boyfriend Clay Caldwell, a deputy sheriff, don't think the killing was an accident, but that the wrong person was accidentally shot. When another attempt at murder is made, the police have two crimes with no sus …
Human on the Inside
In Human on the Inside Gary Garrison takes readers out of their comfort zones and into some of Canada's most notorious and violent prisons, introducing us to a menacing yet vibrant subculture of inmates, guards, and staff. Through personal stories, Garrison illuminates a criminal justice system that ignores poverty, racism, mental illness, and addi …
Behind the Badge
Buckle up for true stories of the chiefs, strongmen, and outlaws who kept the peace.
Where did the concept of policing originate? Who fought crime in ancient civilizations like those of Greece and Rome? How did the monarchs of the Middle Ages keep the countryside free of bandits? Why were the frontier towns of the American West policed by gunfighter …
Dead Ends
Forty crimes. Forty crimes of betrayal, greed, and desperation. Forty crimes that shed light on our shared past, and our lives today. Murderers and scam artists. Masterminds and bunglers. The infamous and the forgotten. Dead Ends looks at them all. Leo Mantha, the last man hanged in B.C. Wong Foon Sing, the Chinese houseboy kidnapped and tortured b …
Blue Suicide
For Wyn Rhys, Director of the Special Police Oversight Agency, justice is not an idea, but a destination. Charged with investigating those who are meant to serve and protect, Rhys is at once a pragmatist and a maverick, intent on changing the world of oversight while fending off challenges from powerful political opponents.
When an artist staging a …
Dead of Winter, The
The novel follows world-weary Detective Inspector Luc Vanier as he hunts down a disturbed killer of homeless people. Vanier confronts his own demons while his investigation draws him into the heart of the Catholic Church in Quebec, the boardrooms of Montreal’s business elite, and the back-alleys and soup kitchens of the dispossessed. With a cast …
Crush. Candy. Corpse.
Paradise Manor is depressing -- the smells are bad and the residents are old. Sunny would much rather be doing her volunteer hours at Salon Teo, but her teacher won't let her. Who says volunteering at a hair salon doesn't benefit the community”
But working with the Alzheimer's patients has a surprising effect on Sunny. Along with Cole, the grands …
The Beautiful Dead End
Finalist, Books in Canada/Amazon.ca First Novel Award
The Beautiful Dead End is a visceral crime thriller that takes the reader on an existential journey to the “other side” and almost back again. In a bizarre, shadowy interzone populated by disturbing characters, our anti-hero confronts the dark secrets of his past, and comes face to face with …
Keeping Things Whole
It's 1998 and Antony Williams is about to meet his match. A native of Windsor, Ontario, Antony is the child of a demanding single mother and an absconding Vietnam War resister who got too used to leaving home, country, and family. With a keen eye on the hybrid Windsor-Detroit landscape, backhanded affection for his hometown, and a growing understan …