Thomas Rendell Curran

 

Thomas Rendell Curran was born in St. John’s, Newfoundland, in 1939, the year the Second World War started and ten years before a narrow majority of the island’s population voted to join Newfoundland with Canada as the tenth province. It is no coincidence, then, that his novels are set in the post-war, pre-Confederation Newfoundland of the late 1940s. His protagonist is Inspector Eric Stride of the Newfoundland Constabulary. (The designation Royal was added to the Constabulary’s name in 1979.)

Thomas graduated with honours from Memorial University of Newfoundland (biology, chemistry) in 1961, and received his doctorate (plant pathology) from the University of Toronto in 1966. Following graduation, he worked in various capacities with Agriculture Canada, and for more than 20 years he was a senior researcher and writer with the Library of Parliament in Ottawa. He lives in Ottawa, but his roots remain in Newfoundland. He visits the island frequently for both research and for personal renewal.

There are two books published in the Inspector Stride mystery series: Undertow (2002) and The Rossiter File (2005). Undertow has been published in Dutch and Spanish translations. The third novel in the Inspector Stride series, Death of a Lesser Man, will appear in 2011; the publisher is Boulder Publications, Portugal Cove-St. Philips, NL. The author currently working on the fourth novel in the series; the book is currently untitled.

 
Selected Bibliography:
The Inspector Stride Mystery Series:
Undertow. St. John’s, NL: Breakwater Books, 2002
The Rossiter File. St. John’s, NL: Breakwater Books, 2005 

Undertow
In St. John’s in May 1947, a woman is brutally murdered in her bath. In the same neighbourhood, in 1943, a young American soldier was also murdered, a crime that was never solved. Two murders, four years apart, one killer or two? Inspector Stride uncovers a complex web of evidence and circumstance, following a trail that goes back more than twenty years. The first novel in the series, Undertow is set against the backdrop of wartime and post-war Newfoundland, in a time of social and political upheaval.

The Rossiter File
St. John’s, Newfoundland, 1947. Samuel Rossiter is dead. His body is found in a laneway by a policeman late on an August Monday night. Rossiter’s death appears to be the result of an unfortunate accident, but Stride isn’t convinced. And who is Sam Rossiter? An impoverished old man living out his time in a boarding house in St. John’s? Or something else? To find the answers, Stride follows a trail of evidence and circumstance that goes back more than three decades, a trail that tells a complex story of wealth, privilege, and personal tragedy.


Awards:
Finalist, Crime Writers of Canada’s Arthur Ellis Award for Best First Novel, 2003, for Undertow
 

Website:
www.trcurran.com

Email:
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it