Carpenter, J.D.

The Devil in Me (Burying Ariel)

When his attempts to publish his eccentric “list” poems in literary journals prove futile, convicted rapist and Shakespearean scholar Lawrence Woolley exacts the most terrible revenge. One by one, he murders the editors who have rejected his work, each time leaving a signature clue for the cops to puzzle over.

Detective Sergeant Campbell Young, the narrator, deep in a funk since his not-so-recent divorce and unhappily contemplating retirement, takes on the case, initially with great weariness. Soon he finds himself fascinated by the wiles and learning of his murderous adversary and rises to Woolley’s challenge of wits, with the help of colleagues and friends from his local bar. But the challenge comes excruciatingly close to home when Woolley, in desperation, ditches his modus operandi and targets Young’s adult daughter as his next victim.

The setting is Toronto during the World Series in October 1992, and baseball ranks second only to apprehending Woolley in the lives of Young and his hard-drinking circle of friends.

Atmospheric, graphic, and compelling, The Devil in Me is as much a literary puzzle as the suspenseful story of Young’s search for Woolley and his own search for some meaning in his life.

Compassionate travel

74 Miles Away (Castle Street Mysteries)

Because business is slow for retired homicide detective Campbell Young's new enterprise, A-1 Investigative Consultants, he decides to take a break — a horse-playing vacation to Florida. No sooner are his plans made, however, than his old friend Priam Harvey approaches him with a complex problem: a young Caribbean jazz musician has been found dead in a Toronto hotel room, his body surrounded by the paraphernalia of voodoo. Harvey, whose connection to the victim is revealed to be more than casual, persuades Young to put aside his Racing Form and pick up the trail of the killer.

Young's pursuit takes him all the way from the nightclubs of New York to the Pine Barrens of New Jersey and the backwater bars of Grand Bahama Island before the possibility presents itself that the murderer might actually be right in his own backyard.

It Walks by Night

Problem of the Wire Cage

Bright's Kill

When racehorse trainer Delbert "Shorty" Rogers is found dead in a stall at Caledonia Downs, Homicide Detective Campbell Young is drawn into the investigation. Add to the mix a lottery winner, an Internet mogul, a reclusive land baron, his voluptuous helpmate and twin bodyguards, an eccentric environmentalist, a cast of backstretch characters reminiscent of Damon Runyon, and the murder of a thoroughbred racehorse named Download, and the scene is set. The possibility that the deaths of Rogers and Download are unrelated makes Young's task even more difficult. With the assistance of washed-up racetrack journalist Priam Harvey, Young sets out to solve the mysteries and bring the guilty to justice.