On receiving the Edgar Nom
On Wednesday, I got the shock of my life. I was on my lunch hour, and I picked up my cell phone to find that my Twitter was blowing up. I assumed at first that it was due to one of those tweets where someone says how much they love and appreciate other people and…
The Day She Died by S.M. Freedman
I like novels that tell a story in both the present and the past. After all, so much of what we become is tied up in where we have been. When an author uses this shifting perspective it’s like getting two mysteries for the price of one. In any old book you can read to…
The Less Dead by Denise Mina
My mother used to work as a social worker, reuniting adult adoptive children with their natural parents. She’d be the first to tell you that those reunions can be wonderfully rewarding. They can also be a complete flippin’ disaster. That’s the thing with birth families, just like Forest Gump’s iconic box of chocolates, “you never…
Interview with Nicole Lundrigan
BIO NICOLE LUNDRIGAN is the author of six critically acclaimed novels, including The Substitute and Glass Boys. Her work has appeared on best of the year selections of The Globe and Mail, Amazon.ca, and Now magazine. Her most recent novel, Hideaway, is currently on the shortlist for a 2020 Arthur Ellis Award. She grew up…
Darling Rose Gold By Stephanie Wrobel
Rose Gold and her mother, Patty, have a complicated relationship in the dark domestic thriller, Darling Rose Gold. This is in part due to Patty being in prison for the last five years. Incarceration tends to put a damper on most family get-togethers, particularly birthdays when everybody expects cakes with a file in them. But…
River of Lies By R.M. Greenaway
The dead bodies are dropping fast and furious in this latest novel in the B.C. Blues Crime series by the talented R.M. Greenaway. If you are looking for dull moments, pick up another book. In the first few pages of River of Lies, a young woman is murdered in a parking lot on her way…
Darlington by Tripsy South
“Sometimes it was just best to shut the f*** up and let the wisdom flow over you.” – (p. 217) Such was the approach I attempted to take while reading Darlington. This novel is a sort of Kerouac-like stream of consciousness that follows a few months in the life of Tommy Darlington – a part-time…
Bunny by Mona Awad
It is tough to nail down the genre of Bunny, A Novel by Mona Awad. Is it noir? Horror? Crime fiction? Is it an acid flashback from that tab you dropped stupidly in college? Or maybe we will just call it Literary, the great catch-all for all exceptionally well-written works that often defy description. Whatever…
Divorce is Murder By Elka Ray
Divorce is Murder. I can attest to that. Although despite the messy demise of an ill-fated starter marriage in my twenties, no one seemed driven to committing an actual homicide (note to self: cancel outstanding professional contract hit on ex-husband arranged during a night with friends and too much Sangria). But when Josh Barton walks…
Where the Ice Falls By J.E. Barnard
What better way to cool off during the dog days of summer than with a frosty winter mystery? Award-winning author J.E. Barnard’s Where the Ice Falls (The Falls Mysteries #2) is set in Alberta in late December. After reading it, I would guess that most of the people who live in this area of Canada…
