January 2007

Vicki Cameron, Shillings (YA)
It's 1829. Colonel By is building the Rideau Canal, but the Hog's Back dam has sprung a leak. His daughters and their friends, the McKay boys, have an unexpected day off school and hurry to the wharf to watch the first steamboat of the season arrive. This steamboat has some interesting cargo: the payroll for the canal workers and four Canadian horses. In the excitement of the rampaging horses, someone steals the payroll. While the Bys and the McKays track the stolen money, Harriet By disappears. Can Alexander and Esther save Harriet before the dam bursts and she's swept to her death? (Middle grade)

Trade paperback
Deadlock Press
ISBN: 978-0-9780561-1-7
March 2007
$9.95

J. D. Carpenter, 74 Miles Away: A Campbell Young Mystery
Just as retired homicide detective Campbell Young is about to head off on a horse-playing excursion to Florida, he hears about the murder of a young Caribbean jazz musician whose body, surrounded by the paraphernalia of voodoo, has been found in a Toronto hotel room. Young puts aside his Racing Form and picks up the trail of the killer. The pursuit takes him from the nightclubs of New York City to the Pine Barrens of New Jersey and the backwater bars of Grand Bahama Island before the possibility presents itself that the murderer might be right in his own backyard.

Mass market paperback
A Castle Street Mystery (Dundurn)
ISBN: 978-1-55002-649-8
December 2006 (originally scheduled for January 2007)
$11.99

Denise Dietz, Throw Darts at a Cheesecake: An Ellie Bernstein/Lt. Peter Miller Mystery
At the weekly Weight Winners meeting, losing is winning...until the members discover that losing weight is not only murder, it's downright lethal. One by one, the group's Big Losers are being systematically murdered. Is some jealous member a secret killer? Group leader Ellie Bernstein has to watch her back as well as her calories before she finds herself on the most permanent diet of all: death. "Denise Dietz proves that losing weight can be a killer." – Diane Mott Davidson

Lina Gardiner, Grave Illusions
New York City is in the grasp of a deadly unseen enemy. At least, that is, unseen by normal society. Lieutenant Jess Vandermire is uniquely specialized to fight this threat. It's her job to forge a black-ops team of men and women who wouldn't be considered under normal circumstances.
But these aren't normal circumstances. Team members have to be tough and they have to be expendable. When Jess tells John Brittain, ex-cop and team member, the truth about herself, will he stay and fight, or turn against her and not only threaten their lives but destroy the fragile relationship developing between them?

Linda Hall, Black Ice: Book #2 in the Fog Point series
Lenore Featherjohn found the girl, frozen against a snow bank behind Lenore's bed-and-breakfast. Some said she was a ghost. Others said an angel.

Lenore knows better. Fearing that the police might look to her sons as murderers, she hires Jake Rikker and his crusty business partner, May, to investigate the suspicious circumstances surrounding her undesirable discovery. Their search leads them not to the strange girl – or to Earth's final days, as many in the town suspect – but to Amy McLaren, the wife of the Stone Church's minister. As Jake and May get closer to the truth, the tension between Lenore and Amy rises, forcing both women to face the secrets they've hidden far too long.

Lyn Hamilton, The Orkney Scroll
Antiques dealer Lara McClintoch finds her reputation tarnished when one of her wealthiest clients buys a rare writing cabinet on Lara's 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.

Mass market paperback
Berkley Prime Crime
ISBN: 978-0-425-21431-2
February 2007
$10.99 (US$7.99)

James Hawkins, Deadly Sin: A Chief Inspector Bliss Mystery (#8)
Emotions run high when Queen Elizabeth II attempts to heal the schism between Christians and Muslims by attending a London mosque for Friday prayers. David Bliss, newly returned to duty while he tries to find a publisher for his novel, has the task of protecting the royal couple, but is caught off guard when an attack comes from an unexpected quarter. Could the forces of the Devil be at work?

Jennifer Lanthier, The Mystery of the Martello Tower: A Hazel Frump Adventure (YA)
When their art-dealer dad mysteriously disappears, twelve-year-old Hazel Frump joins forces with Ned, her dangerously brilliant nine-year-old brother, to sort out the clues. But then a painting goes missing, their apartment is burgled, two menacing thugs begin turning up everywhere, and Interpol goes after Ned. Escaping to the castle of some long-lost cousins only leads the Frumps deeper into peril...and closer to a dark secret from their father’s past. Hazel and Ned need courage and skill, every skill they've got – from the basketball court to the chemistry lab – to solve both mysteries and bring their father home. (Middle grade)

José Latour, Outcast
Elliot Steill, the product of a brief union between his Cuban mother and an American-born labourer, is an unhappy teacher in Havana when a man claiming to be a friend of Steill's deceased father arrives in Cuba and offers him the chance to escape. The plan goes dangerously amiss, and Steill is soon on the hunt through Miami's mean streets for the man who betrayed him. To find him, Steill first has to figure out why he was singled out, an exercise that has him mentally searching his past in Cuba for clues.
The fast-paced story, which reveals as much about real life in Cuba as it does about the émigré community in Miami, sees Steill transformed into a man of hair-trigger reactions as he's forced into playing an increasingly violent game of cat and mouse.

Christopher G. Moore, The Risk of Infidelity Index
Major political demonstrations are rocking Bangkok as chaos and fear sweep through the Thai and expatriate communities. Rumours of coup d’état are in the air as Calvino steps into the political firestorm as he investigates a drug piracy operation. The piracy is traced to a powerful business interest protected by important political connections. A nineteen-year-old Thai woman and a middle-age lawyer end up dead on the same evening. Both are connected to Calvino's investigation. The dead lawyer's law firm denies any knowledge of the case. Calvino is left in the cold. Approached by a group of expat housewives – rattled by The Risk of Infidelity Index that ranks Bangkok number one for available sexual temptations – to investigate their husbands, Calvino discovers the alliance of forces blocking his effort to disclose the secret pirate drug investigation.

Sue Pike, editor, Locked Up
Colonel By built the Rideau Canal to defend against an American invasion. He couldn't have imagined the carnage that twenty of Canada's best mystery writers would wreak along this peaceful waterway two centuries later. In Kingston, a young lawyer named John A. Macdonald investigates the death of a wealthy landlord. At Jones Falls, a lockmaster finds a nasty use for a sluice. And there seems to be a corpse for each of the eight locks at Ottawa. Stories range from dark tales of redemption to comic romps, from historical to modern day, and there's even a ghost or two for good measure.

Caro Soles, Drag Queen in the Court of Death
While cleaning out his dead ex-lover's apartment, staid history professor Michael Dunn-Barten discovers a mummified corpse in a trunk. To find answers, Michael must travel back twenty-five years. Back to the 1960s, to the realization of his sexuality and the boy he loved. Back to the troubling time when his wife threw him out and his family disowned him. Back to uncover disturbing answers amidst drag queens and murky memories. Was his first real love a twisted killer? Caro Soles presents a compelling mystery set against the flamboyant backdrop of drag queens and the "court" system of drag circles.

If you missed any back issues of Cool Canadian Crime, you can find them at:
http://crimewriterscanada.com/cwc/pages/coolcanadiancrime_dec05.htm (Oct to Dec 2005)
http://crimewriterscanada.com/cwc/pages/coolcanadiancrime_jan06.htm (Jan to March 2006)
http://crimewriterscanada.com/cwc/pages/coolcanadiancrime_apr06.htm (April to June 2006)
http://crimewriterscanada.com/cwc/pages/coolcanadiancrime_july06.htm (July to Sept 2006)
http://crimewriterscanada.com/cwc/pages/coolcanadiancrime_oct06.htm (Oct to Dec 2006)

The books listed in Cool Canadian Crime can usually be found at -- or ordered online from -- our Crime Writers of Canada member bookstores:

· Almark & Co. Booksellers (Toronto, ON)
Phone: (905) 764-2665
E-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

· As the Plot Thickens (Kingston, ON)
www.astheplotthickens.com
Phone: (613) 548-4664
E-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

· Chronicles of Crime (Victoria, BC)
www.abebooks.com/home/chroniclesofcrime Phone: (250) 721-2665
E-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

· The Mysterious Affair at Waterloo (Waterloo, ON)
www.themysteriousaffair.com
Phone: (519) 747-8050
E-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

· The Poisoned Pen (Scottsdale, AZ)
www.poisonedpen.com
Phone: (480) 947-2974
Toll-free: 1 888 560-9919
E-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

· Prime Crime Books (Ottawa, ON)
www.primecrimebooks.com
Phone: (613) 238-CLUE
E-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

· Scene of the Crime (St. Catharines, ON) (by appointment only)
www.murdermysteriesandmore.com
Phone: (905) 646-0214
E-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

· Sleuth of Baker Street (Toronto, ON)
www.sleuthofbakerstreet.com
Phone: (416) 483-3111
E-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

· Well Read Books (Calgary, AB)
www.wellreadbooks.ca
Phone: (403) 541-0050
E-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

· Whodunit? Mystery Bookstore (Winnipeg, MB)
www.whodunitcanada.com
Phone: (204) 284-9100
Toll-free: 1 800 468-4216
E-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it