The Best of Cold Blood
by Peter Sellers
from MJF Books
This is a stunning collection of thirteen of the most gripping short crime and suspense fiction that has appeared throughout the years in Canada's Cold Blood series, which debuted in 1987. Some of Canada's favorite veteran writers as well as new up-and-comers are featured here in a diversity of styles and subjects. Included in this offering are stories by William Bankier, Charlotte MacLeod, Mary Jane Maffini, John North, Jas R. Petrin, James Powell, Peter Robinson, Peter Sellers, Ted Wood, Eric Wright, Vivienne Gornall, Nancy Kilpatrick, and Tony Aspler. A delicious sampling of murder, betrayal, and revenge certain to satisfy the appetites of hungry mystery lovers everywhere.
The Kidnapping of Rosie Dawn: A Joe Barley Mystery (Joe Barley Mysteries)
by Eric Wright
from Daniel & Daniel Publishers
Joe Barley, a part-time lecturer in English Literature and part-time security guard, is alerted by his maid to the disappearance of another of her employers, Rosie Dawn, a student of classics who is working her way through school by being an exotic dancer and the mistress of a fast-food entrepreneur. The novel also involves campus politics--a student tries to exploit the nervous administration over its minority policies.
Death of a Hired Man
The day shift at the Ontario Provincial Police Station had just come on duty when they received a disturbing phone call--a homicide in a log cabin on Larch River. Sergeant Wilkie fears it's Mel Pickett who has been killed and is almost relieved when he sees that the victim is Norbert Thompson, a local "hired man" who had been renting Pickett's cabin. Just as Wilkie starts looking for a motive, Pickett arrives in town and learns of the murder. His immediate though is, was he the intended victim?
Sergeant Wilkie and ex-Sergeant Pickett pursue their investigations separately, but each keeps a watchful eye on the other. Wilkie's lead brings him to rural Ontario, where Thompson used to work as a "hired man" on his brother's farm. Pickett looks for the killer among all the violent men who have threatened to get him as they were led off to jail. Will they be able to catch the killer before he or she strikes again?
A Charlie Salter Omnibus (Charlie Salter Mysteries)
by Eric Wright
from Castle Street Mysteries
Eric Wright's popular detective, Charlie Salter, is introduced in this collection of the first three books in the well-loved mystery series: The Night the Gods Smiled, Smoke Detector, and Death in the Old Country. Self-righteous and outspoken, Salter has gotten himself shunted to routine duties from what he considers the "real" police work of investigation. However, circumstances give him the chance to redeem himself, and his intelligence and sensitivity guide him through the cases that follow. Interwoven in the detective work, Charlie's wry humour and perception and his personal relationships and family life add extra dividends and enjoyment for the reader.
BURIED IN STONE: A Mel Pickett Mystery
by Eric Wright
from Scribner
DEATH IN A ONE-COP TOWN
Fans of Eric Wright's Charlie Salter series will quickly warm to his new detective, Mel Pickett, a Toronto homicide cop just retired to the rustic town of Larch River. It's a plain place for a plain man, and his life consists of simple pleasures: his hand-built log cabin, carpentry work for the community theater, and his cautious courtship of cafe proprietor Charlotte Mercer. But complications are not so easily left behind in the city--and neither is murder.
Local lothario Timmy Marlow is found in the woods, shot dead, mauled, and nearly unrecognizable. The gossip around town suffests an outraged husband could be the killer. The town's police chief (and only cop) is too close to the victim, who was the despised brother of his girlfriend. The provincial police have picked up a convenient suspect, as unpopular as Marlow. But Pickett can't resist looking deeper, uncovering a criminal past more sinister and secret than he ever imagined.
Death on the Rocks
by Eric Wright
from St. Martin's Minotaur
Death of a Sunday Writer
Recently separated from her domineering husband, Lucy Trimble is eager to start a life of her own. When a relative wills her his private detective agency, Lucy--who up to this point has worked as a librarian--thinks she's found her calling. The problem is that most of her clients are unscrupulous gamblers and crooks--members of a sinister underworld of which Lucy has no comprehension. Determined to make a go of it, Lucy employs her own brand of sleuthing, despite the threats and "advice" of her new-found business associates.
Lucy Brenner has left her husband, her town, and her previous life behind. She lives in Longborough, a town halfway between Kingston and Toronto, where she runs a bed and breakfast and where, one day while working in the library, a phone call sets into action events that change her up-to-now quite predictable existence. Lucy's cousin, David Trimble, has died and made her his sole beneficiary. With some trepidation, she makes the impulsive decision to carry on his business - a private detective agency, though these might be grand words for the down-and-out ransacked office she finds upon visiting Toronto to lay claim to her unexpected inheritance. Previously published in hardcover only, this is the first paperback release of the first Lucy Trimble mystery.
The Hemingway Caper (Joe Barley Mysteries)
by Eric Wright
from Castle Street Mysteries
Joe Barley, full-time English professor and part-time private detective, is given a simple case: to track Jason Tyler and find proof of his adultery. But as he's investigating, Barley stumbles across the story of a missing manuscript containing writings by a young Ernest Hemingway. What is Tyler's connection to the Hemingway papers? And why does Tyler's wife insist that Barley stay on the case, long after he's come up with the required evidence of Tyler's infidelity? While these questions hang over Barley, his own life is complicated by academic politics, and challenges to his monogamous relationship with his longtime partner, Carole. Set in Toronto, The Hemingway Caper is the second book in the Joe Barley series. The first, The Kidnapping of Rosie Dawn, won the prestigious Barry Award.
The man who changed his name: An inspector Charlie Salter mystery (A Nightingale mystery in large print)
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