Poisoned Pen Press
When Pru Marlowe gets the call that there's been a cat shooting, she's furious. Animal brutality is the one thing that this tough animal psychic won't stand for, and she's determined to care for the traumatized pet. But when Pru finds out that the cat did the shooting—accidentally setting off a rare dueling pistol—she realizes something else is going on. Could the white Persian really have killed her owner? Or did the whole bloody mess have
...2019 recipient of the Derrick Murdoch award from the Crime Writers of Canada
Fifteen years ago a young girl named Moonlight Smith went to her best friend Nicky Nowak's house for a sleepover. Moonlight joined the family for breakfast the following morning and was then picked up by her mother. Shortly after, Mr. Nowak went for a walk. He was never seen again.
Autumn has arrived on the mountains above Trafalgar, B.C. and Constable
...2019 recipient of the Derrick Murdoch award from the Crime Writers of Canada
In the mountain town of Trafalgar, British Columbia, a young woman is found dead of a heroin overdose, her baby lying at her side. While this should be an open-and-shut drug case, restraint marks on the victim suggest that the death might not have been accidental.
As the investigation into the young woman's death and life grows, the case becomes increasingly
...When veterinarian Rachel Goddard and Deputy Sheriff Tom Bridger take teenagers on an outing to clean up roadside trash in rural Mason County, Virginia, they make a grisly discovery: the plastic-wrapped body of a young woman. One teen peers at the face through the plastic and screams. The dead girl is her sister, Shelley, a law student who has been missing for a month.
As Tom launches the investigation, Rachel copes with a visit from her own
...7) The Coaster
Bob Patterson considers himself an Everyman—albeit an Everyman with a rich, beautiful wife, two good kids, and a mail-it-in job that ignores his law degree. Despite his good fortune, Bob is idling through life, bored at work and at home. In short, he is the proverbial Coaster.
Bob's wife, Sarah, is the anointed heir to the empire built by her father, Sam—a kind of Kansas City, Missouri, Warren Buffet. Fine by Bob, the family soccer mom.
...Once, Hannah Manning was an internationally-renowned journalist and war correspondent. Today, she's a woman suffering from a traumatic brain injury. Unable to read, unable to concentrate, full of pain, lost and confused, haunted by her memories, Hannah goes to her sister's small-scale vegetable farm in Prince Edward County, Ontario to recover.
As summer settles on the farm, she finds comfort in the soft rolling hills and neat fields as well as
...10) Broken Places
Summer is deadly in the mountain community of Mason County, Virginia. Deputy Sheriff Tom Bridger and veterinarian Rachel Goddard are caught in a maelstrom of lies that stretch far into the past and suspicions that threaten the future. Cam and Meredith Taylor are murdered within hours of one another, and Rachel is dragged into the case because she heard—but didn't see—Cam's murder. The Taylors arrived in Mason County as volunteers in the 1960s
...11) Night Kill
Night Kill is a mystery set in fictional Finley Memorial Zoo in Vancouver, Washington, seen from an insider perspective on the challenging and dangerous world of zoo keeping. Iris Oakley, a young zookeeper, hopes to reconcile with her husband after he promises to quit drinking. But he's soon found dead drunk and just plain dead in the lion exhibit. A paralyzing mix of grief and anger at his betrayal keep Iris from questioning the assumptions
...12) Did Not Survive
Something frightening is happening in the mountain community of Mason County, Virginia. Pets are vanishing mysteriously and "Missing Dog" posters cover the waiting room walls at Dr. Rachel Goddard's veterinary clinic. A pack of feral canines roams at night, attacking livestock in a desperate search for food.
Then prominent physician Gordon Hall is found dead in his yard, his throat ripped open. Sheriff's Department investigator Tom Bridger
...2019 recipient of the Derrick Murdoch award from the Crime Writers of Canada
What would it be like to return to your hometown after twenty-five years in prison for a crime you have maintained you did not commit? And why would you return?
Walter Desmond is back in Trafalgar, British Columbia, having been officially exonerated when new evidence showed corruption at worst, incompetence at best, by the Trafalgar City Police
...15) Negative Image
2019 recipient of the Derrick Murdoch award from the Crime Writers of Canada
As the mountain town of Trafalgar, British Columbia, shakes off a long hard winter, famous photographer Rudolph Steiner arrives to do a feature on mountain tourism. Steiner is accompanied by his assistant and his sexy young wife, but he has another reason for the visit: to re-connect with the woman who left him 25 years ago to marry another man. That woman
...16) Muzzled
Making rounds to homes one wet spring morning, veterinarian Dr. Kate Turner visits an estate whose owners breed champion Cavalier King Charles spaniels. Instead of sharing traditional tea with the couple, she confronts a bloody scene of bodies and twenty-seven blue-ribbon dogs running wild.
Police initially suspect a murder-suicide, but when Dr. Kate proves the famous best-in-show champion is missing, a darker reality intrudes. She remembers
...17) Cries & Whiskers
When an animal rights activist is killed by a hit-and-run driver on an icy Cambridge street, music critic Theda Krakow can't get too upset. Besides, Theda is busy investigating the rise of a dangerous new designer drug that threatens the musicians and fans who make up the popular club scene.
But when Theda learns that the accident victim was defying her own radical group to rescue feral cats on the eve of a ferocious winter storm, she puts
...2019 recipient of the Derrick Murdoch award from the Crime Writers of Canada
"Delaney glides between scenes with ease. She uses a bare-bones style, without literary flash, to achieve artistry as sturdy and restrained as a Shaker chair."—Publishers Weekly, STARRED review
Siblings Wendy and Jason Wyatt-Yarmouth and their friends have come to the peaceful mountain town of Trafalgar, B.C. to enjoy a two-week vacation
...19) A Cold White Sun
2019 recipient of the Derrick Murdoch award from the Crime Writers of Canada
It's the end of March and Trafalgar, British Columbia, is preparing for the last influx of the seasonal skiers. Teachers, parents, and students are preparing to relax at home or head off on vacation. But for high school English teacher Cathy Lindsay, the week of relaxation doesn't work out as planned. She's gunned down by a sniper on a hiking trail, her small
...Anthropologist Dinah Pelerin had no idea when she left sunny Hawaii for Norway that she would get a crash course in the politics of genetic engineering and the Doomsday Seed Vault. Nor did she expect that she would become embroiled in the marital troubles of an American presidential candidate and his enigmatic, Norwegian-born wife...or that a dead body would tumble out of the hotel sauna into her arms.
In late December, Polar Night wraps
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