April 2006

Alvin Abram, The Minyan

“The Minyan was a true adventure from start to finish. The characters were alive and jumped out of the pages like a good friend. It was a toss up between earning an income or reading the book all day and into the early morning hours. The characters became a part of my life. I couldn’t wait to pick up the book again and continue on The Minyan’s journey. The Minyan brought home the question: Is revenge an answer and how do we face the future?” – Zelda Young, Shalom Jewish Programs, CHIN Radio

Trade paperback
AMA Graphics
ISBN 0-9733480-5-4
June 2006
$32.95

Lou Allin, Murder, Eh?: A Belle Palmer Mystery

Northern Ontario realtor Belle Palmer is showing a mansion when she discovers the owner dead in her bathtub. Does this third death mean that there’s a serial killer in the Nickel Capital? The dead woman’s 12-year-old son, Micro, comes to stay with Belle’s neighbours and wins her heart. When the boy disappears, Belle hooks up with a bumbling P.I. and joins the search. “Lou Allin raises the bar on mystery writing.” – Shelley Glodowsky, Midwest Book Review

Trade paperback
RendezVous Press
ISBN: 1-894917-27-8
April 2006
$14.95 (US$12.95)

Linwood Barclay, Bad Guys: A Zack Walker Mystery

Already trying to deal on the home front with a mysterious man who may be stalking his daughter, Zack Walker – newspaper writer, obsessive dad, compulsive worrier, and reluctant hero – writes a feature article on a P.I. that brings him face to face with the homicidal, doll-loving leader of a criminal gang. “Barclay is the master.” – Wall Street Journal

Mass market paperback
Bantam
ISBN: 0553587056
April 2006
$9.99

P.A. Brown, L.A. Heat

When LAPD detective David Laine first encounters hunky party boy Chris Bellamere, it is to interrogate him about the murder of one of Chris’s many sexual conquests. When Chris’s efforts to prove his own innocence mark him as a victim, David steps in to save him, and finds himself falling in love with a man who might be a brutal murderer. P.A. Brown’s debut is a gritty mystery set in LA’s edgy, less glamorous East Side, where gangs co-mingle with gays, gunfire is heard after dark, and a gay cop like David Laine can live undetected…at least until now.

Jeff Buick, African Ice

They say diamonds are a girl’s best friend. Maybe not if you’re world renowned geologist Samantha Carlson, the only person who knows the location of a diamond formation deep in the Ruwenzori jungles of Africa. The diamonds embedded in the kimberlite pipe have the potential to change the diamond industry as we know it – to bring down the diamond cartels that carefully control the prices we pay for the stones. Her knowledge is worth untold millions. But Samantha knows that once the location is compromised, her life is over. The list of people who want her dead is long and dangerous, and the only way to survive, is to go after those trying to kill her.

Mass market paperback
Dorchester Publishing
ISBN: 0-8439-5720-4
April 2006 
$8.99 (US$6.00)

Vicki Delany, Burden of Memory

Elaine Benson – divorced, broke, out of work – arrives at Muskoka’s Millionaires’ Row to help elderly Moira Madison write her memoirs, most specifically of her years with the Canadian Army Nursing Sisters in World War II. Settling into the family “cottage” and the remains of a lifestyle long gone, Elaine reconnects with her love of researching the past. But the past is to be found in more than old boxes and musty letters, and Elaine discovers that memories can kill. “One of Canada’s post promising new practitioners of the crime genre.” – Dick Adler, Chicago Tribune

Hardcover and Trade paperback (large print)
Poisoned Pen Press
ISBN: 1-59058-266-7 (hardcover)
ISBN: 1-59058-267-5 (trade paper)
June 2006 (both editions)
$34.95 (US$24.95) (hardcover)
$29.95 (US$22.95) (trade paper)

Vicki Delany, Scare the Light Away

A complex novel interweaving two generations of strong women – an English war bride and her Canadian daughter – into a quilt of old betrayals, modern mystery, and contemporary redemption. “Well-crafted storytelling and an evocative setting make for a rewarding debut from Canadian newcomer Delany.” – Publishers Weekly. “One of Canada’s post promising new practitioners of the crime genre.” – Dick Adler, Chicago Tribune

Trade paperback
Poisoned Pen Press
ISBN: 1-59058-279-9
June 2006
$19.95 (US$14.95)

Lee Goldberg, Mr. Monk Goes to Hawaii

Obsessive-compulsive detective Adrian Monk becomes an uninvited guest on his beleaguered assistant Natalie's dream vacation to Hawaii, where he ruins her best friend's wedding, stumbles onto the perfect murder, and matches wits with a world-famous medium who can talk to the dead.

Mass market paperback
Penguin/Putnam/NAL
ISBN: 0451219007
June 2006
$9.99

N.A.T. Grant, Race Without Rules (2^nd Edition): Book I of the Race Series

An anti-Semitic plot is looming in Montreal’s affluent Westmount district. Megan Brodie crosses paths with a mysterious neighbour and is pitched headlong into a chilling plot that races from Canada to Brazil.

Linda Hall, Dark Water: A Fog Point Mystery

P.I. Jake Rikker has been hired to find a stalker. Up-and-coming jewellery designer Elise St. Dennis wants him to find the menacing ex-con who has traced her to the small town of Fog Point. Aided by his business partner, May, a crusty  widow, Jake sets out in pursuit of the stalker. But as they draw ever closer to their prey, it becomes terrifyingly clear that they have become not the hunters but the hunted.  "Its lively setting among the whale-watchers of Fog Point provides a cast of captivating and highly suspicious characters. Who to trust? Who to fear?" – award-winning mystery author Rosemary Aubert

Trade paperback
Waterbrook/Random House
ISBN: 1578569540
April 2006
$20.99 (US$13.00)

Lyn Hamilton, The Orkney Scroll: An Archaeological Mystery

Antiques dealer Lara McClintoch finds her reputation tarnished when one of her wealthiest clients buys a rare writing cabinet on her word, only to learn it's a fake. Then Lara finds the dealer who sold it to him dead, with an axe lodged in his head. Lara's client is arrested for the murder, but something doesn't feel right. To save her reputation and prove her client's innocence, Lara heads for the Orkney Islands off the northeast coast of Scotland. Here she is pulled into a centuries-old Viking saga, and a troubling quest that leads to danger…and yet another murder.

Hardcover
Berkley Prime Crime
ISBN: 0-425-20800-1
April 2006
$32.00 (US$22.95)

The fastest, fiercest, and most ferocious illicit drug to hit North America in decades, methamphetamine (aka “crystal meth”) is a home-grown horror that’s cutting a swath through the rural heartland. Made from a witch’s brew of chemicals and solvents – some of them available at pharmacies and retail stores – methamphetamine will mess you up faster and more completely than any other illegal drug known to man. Crystal meth is both incredibly addictive and incredibly dangerous to make – a two-fisted toxic whammy that has police, politicians and addiction experts grasping for solutions.

Dave Hugelschaffer, Day Into Night: A Porter Cassel Mystery

When a raging forest fire can’t suck in air quickly, smoke turns black, blotting out the sun and turning day into night. This false dusk is a sign of conditions turning rapidly from bad to worse as well as a metaphor for Porter Cassel’s race against time to catch both a serial arsonist and an eco-terrorist who bombs logging equipment. But Cassel also has a tragedy in his past, which the killer uses to frame him for murder. “It was the Forest Rangers’ equivalent of CSI.  I liked the realistic descriptions of the work and an interesting plot. A good read.” – best-selling mystery author Nevada Barr

Trade paperback
Cormorant Books
ISBN: 1-896951-93-7
May 2006
$21.95

Maureen Jennings, Vices of My Blood: A Detective Murdoch Mystery

The sixth in the Detective Murdoch series set in Toronto of 1896 finds Murdoch investigating the savage murder of Reverend Charles Howard, a well-liked pastor of a Toronto Presbyterian church. Nobody will speak ill of the dead man, but somebody hated him enough to kill him. In the course of his investigation, Murdoch enters the House of Industry disguised as a pauper and is forced to defend his own life. On the romantic side of things, Murdoch falls in love.
The first three books in this series have been adapted for television by Shaftesbury Films.

Trade paperback
McClelland & Stewart
ISBN: 0771043767
April 2006
$22.99

Dan Kalla, Resistance

Lina Lopez, a young Seattle epidemiologist, is determined to find out why a drug addict died of a flesh-eating disease caused by bacteria resistant to every known antibiotic. In Vancouver, Dr. Graham Kilburn watches helplessly as two previously healthy patients die from massive untreatable infections. And in Portland, homicide cop Seth Cohen’s investigation into a double murder leads him to a suspect who might be deliberately spreading drugs tainted with a killer bacterium. Realizing man, not nature, created the malicious superbug, the doctors and detective race to find the source before the bacteria digs a permanent foothold on the planet.

Mass market paperback
Tor Books
ISBN: 0-765-35439-X
May 2006
$10.99 (US$7.99)

Rick Mofina, The Dying Hour: A Jason Wade Thriller

The Dying Hour launches a new suspense series by award-winning author Rick Mofina. The book introduces Jason Wade, a rookie reporter with The Seattle Mirror, who grew up in the shadow of a brewery in one of Seattle’s rough neighborhoods. Jason pursues the case of a Seattle college student whose car was found abandoned on a lonely stretch of highway near the Canadian border. Her disappearance is a story he cannot give up, never realizing the toll it will exact from him. The Dying Hour was nominated for Best Paperback Original Novel by the International Thriller Writers.

Deborah Nicholson, Liar, Liar: A Kate Carpenter Mystery

It’s summer and an arsonist is on the loose. A mysterious man is following Kate, her assistant is acting strangely, a new maintenance worker is in the way, and a beautiful reporter is willing to get the story at any price. Then her father turns up for a surprise visit and becomes a suspect himself. Kate is frantic to find answers, but in a race against time, she may not be able to find them before someone gets burned. “Filled with nerve-tingling suspense, plenty of action, memorable characters, and a cliff-hanger ending that guarantees readers will be hankering for the next instalment in this always-satisfying series.” – Booklist

Hardcover (library binding)
Severn House
ISBN: 0727863606
June 2006
$34.95 (US$27.95)

Peter Robinson, Piece of My Heart: An Inspector Banks Novel

At the end of a rock festival in 1969, a girl’s body is found in abandoned in a sleeping bag. When Detective Inspector Chadwick discovers the victim was connected to a local band, the Mad Hatters, he is unwillingly drawn into the psychedelic drug scene. In the present, DCI Alan Banks investigates the murder of a music journalist working on a feature about the Mad Hatters, who are embarking on a reunion tour. To understand the present, Banks must revisit the past, where he finds one band member fried his brains with drugs, and another was found mysteriously drowned in a swimming pool. Banks must act quickly to prevent another tragedy, as the truth reuniting past and present finally emerges.

Hardcover
McClelland & Stewart
ISBN 0-7710-7609-6
May 2006
$34.99

Michelle Wan, Deadly Slipper: A Novel of Death in the Dordogne

Mara Dunn seeks her sister Bedie, who vanished on a hiking holiday in southwestern France. Mara’s only clues are Bedie’s photographs of wild orchids. Mara enlists orchidologist Julian Wood to help her retrace her sister’s footsteps by locating where this sequence of orchids grew. Julian is lured into joining the hunt by a photo of an unknown Lady’s Slipper Orchid that he would kill to find. The trail of flowers proves treacherous and deadly. “Laden with local color….A moody and elegant suspense story.” – Washington Post Book World

Sylvia Maultash Warsh, Season of Iron: A Dr. Rebecca Temple Mystery
In 1979 Toronto, a schizophrenic homeless woman is killed. Rebecca’s investigation into the death leads her to a German fencing instructor and an Egyptian physician, but neither man is who he appears to be. Alternating chapters follow Frederika Eisenbaum, who becomes a doctor against all odds in 1930s Berlin. As the Nazi grip tightens around the Jews, however, Frederika loses the right to practise and is sent to a concentration camp. As Rebecca's and Frederika's stories intertwine, the novel reaches a startling and terrifying conclusion. [Sylvia’s first Rebecca Temple mystery, To Die in Spring, was nominated for an Arthur Ellis Award; her second, Find Me Again, won an Edgar Award.]

Mass market paperback
Dundurn Group (A Castle Street Mystery)
ISBN: 1-55002-616-X
June 2006
$11.99

Sharon Wildwind, Some Welcome Home: An Elizabeth Pepperhawk/Avivah Rosen Mystery

Captain Elizabeth Pepperhawk survived Vietnam, but will she survive Fort Bragg? Whoever put a dead body in her bed wants to shorten not only her military career but her life.

R. G. Willems, Targets of Affection

When a troubled woman arrives at the animal hospital where veterinary nurse Shelby James works, Shelby suspects her of playing an active role in the frequent illnesses of her pets. Shelby’s investigation takes her into the sinister world of mental illness, child abuse, domestic violence, and serial killers. Set against the harsh beauty of the Saskatchewan prairie, Targets of Affection explores one little-known aspect of the link between animal abuse and child abuse.

Trade paperback
Cormorant Books
ISBN: 1-896951-98-8
May 2006
$21.95