Dundurn Press

A time of turmoil, when destinies were forged… In this searing historical novel by Toronto author S.P. Hozy, set amid the turmoil of early twentieth century Shanghai, three women, one Russian, one Chinese, and one French, determine the tragic fate of a young piano prodigy. Which of them is really responsible? A Cold Season In Shanghai is set against the backdrop of revolution in China, when decadent Shanghai was like no other place on earth. The narrator is Tatiana, a Russian woman brought up in a wealthy family. Looking back on her actions thirty years later from her new life in Toronto, she recalls the complex relationships between the three women and the effect they had on each others lives. She suspects she may have been the catalyst for a series of devastating events which caused havoc in the lives of her friends. Tormented by the aftermath of her decision, she chooses to live a life of careless abandon, turning her back on her family and, ultimately, her friends.

This is a story of pioneering courage and compassion in the New World. Jeanne dreamed of devoting her life to caring for others. In 1641, she courageously gave up her comfortable middle-class life in France to journey to the French colonies, today’s province of Quebec. In overcoming incredible hardships, massacres, illness, deprivation and seven gruelling trips across the ocean, Jeanne proved to be a remarkable leader. She ended up founding the first hospital in Montreal as well as being a pioneer and founder of the city of Montreal.

Dave Bolden’s life feels like it’s on repeat. He works his eight hours at a boutique accounting firm, goes home, gets drunk and wakes up the next day to go back to work with a hangover. But his life changes when an eighteen-wheel truck crashes through the front windows of his workplace, killing everyone except him. Shortly after the accident, he is approached by an eccentric businessman, Mr. Thorrin, who interprets Dave’s survival as luck and sets out to exploit what he perceives as a gift. Mr. Thorrin wants Dave to participate in gambling, stock manipulation and extreme betting, all based on this belief. Complicating Dave’s life further is his strained relationship with his father, a lifelong compulsive gambler. The more he interacts with his father, the more he realizes a series of events from his childhood support the theory that he is unusually lucky. What transpires is a series of extreme tests of luck, orchestrated by the very mysterious Mr. Thorrin. The more Dave denies that he is lucky, the more he finds himself in situations that make it appear that he is. As the stakes rise both financially and personally, Dave is left to decide whether his run of good fortune is a gift or a curse.

Have you ever read a book that you couldn’t put down? Has that book taken you to other countries, to other centuries? Have you found yourself brimming with excitement, exclaiming to all who will listen, "Read this book!" This biography is the story of a child who took her love of childrens’ books and found a way to share it with the world as she grew up. Her voice would be the first to carry the message of childrens’ right to read across the world. It is not too much to say that she started a revolution for children’s books in her career as the first children’s librarian in the British Commonwealth.

"She had a voice like an angel, smooth and complex as a twenty-year-old single malt, rich as thick cream. Everyone who heard Olivia sing felt as if she could see right into their souls, that her songs were meant for them alone. This was the magic her artistry conjured. In earlier times, she wouldhave been put to death as a witch. Such was the talent of Olivia Saint." Meet Andy Curran, drummer in a struggling jazz trio. When a distinctly odd street person sings at an open mic night at the club where they work, it’s clear they’ve found their salvation: a vocalist of incredible talent. After she departs as abruptly as she’d arrived, Andy sets out to discover where Olivia Saint has gone and who she really is. That knowledge soon proves to be deadly indeed. In A Case of You, a crime novel that sweeps from the jazz clubs of Toronto, to New York City and Northern California, Rick Blechta has created a compelling story, rich in detail and compassion, and populated with characters not easily forgotten.

Michael Quinn, former rock star, turned his back on a band on the verge of superstardom twenty-four years ago. Hes spent his life since hiding from everything hed been. When a woman chased by thugs jumps into his car, he tries to help. But this sets in motion a chain of events which turns his life upside down, even more so when his best friend is murdered and the girl disappears. Meanwhile, the thugs are looking for Michael. Only by finding the mystery girl can he hope to get out of a hole thats getting bigger. Now he must confront what he was, what he is now and what he might have been.

Victoria Morgan, violin virtuoso extraordinaire, and her devoted piano accompanist are on yet another European tour currently stopping in Vienna. While playing to a full house, Tory leaves the stage and disappears in the middle of this important concert, leaving behind a puzzled (and angry) audience. Why would a seasoned professional so intent on maintaining her well-established career do something so damaging? Especially after some very negative reviews from local press? Tory’s decision to leave proves to be especially fatal to her career, since the rumours of her disappearance involve the accusation that Tory has committed the brutal murder of a high profile Viennese figure. While the press continues to hound everyone who knew Tory for answers, it appears she is running from them, the police and her long-suffering husband Oscar Lukesh, affectionately known as Rocky. Or is she? The action is set around the appearance of a mysterious score for a recently discovered violin concerto of incredible worth. Is it truly by Beethoven as the owner claims, and will Tory be the first to debut this dream violin piece, or are all of these things just hollow promises and a way to bait a trap? Now it looks like it’s up to Rocky to help save Tory from herself and figure out who is committing the growing number of murders - if it really isn’t his wife.

In the sequel to Cut Off his Tale, Hollis Grant is back, but this time shes in Toronto, hoping for a quiet summer of study. Hollis is a painter, and she hopes to spend some time taking a course in painting at the College of Art from her best friends husband, Curt Hartman. But the murder of her friends secretive stepson puts paid to those plans as the friend teeters on the edge of hysteria. She needs support and begs Hollis to move in with the family. Hollis discovers that all is not as it seems. Was the stepson the real target or is it his brother or his father, famous artist, and Holliss instructor, Curt Hartman? It appears that both father and son have led clandestine lives. Would someone kill them because of their secrets? Hollis poses those questions to Rhona Simpson, the Toronto homicide detective whom Hollis last encountered in Ottawa. It soon becomes clear to both women that the crime is the work of a cold-blooded murderer who intends to strike again. Terror mounts at the Hartmans. Arson, a bomb, a sabotaged sailboatthe killer is closing in. Who will be the next victim? Hollis and Rhona race along parallel tracks to solve the case.

Danson Lafleur’s been on a crusade to investigate deported criminals who return undetected to Canada, and now he’s missing. Can he be the unidentified man in the morgue? Danson’s desperate sister pleads with artist and amateur sleuth Hollis Grant to search for her brother, since the police don’t appear to be taking his disappearance seriously. Leads seem to connect Danson and Gregory, his mystery flat-mate, to drugs. But who is Gregory, and what is his connection to the Russian mob? As Hollis investigates, she clashes with homicide detective Rhona Simpson, a woman annoyed by amateur sleuths in general and Hollis Grant in particular. Rhona, adjusting to a new, attractive, enigmatic partner, wants Hollis off the case. Toronto in November is as cold as Danson’s trail. Will Hollis connect the dots before the body count rises?

Book One of the Klondike Mystery Series by Vicki Delany!

It’s the spring of 1898, and Dawson, Yukon Territory, is the most exciting town in North America. The great Klondike Gold Rush is in full swing and Fiona MacGillivray has crawled over the Chilkoot Pass determined to make her fortune as the owner of the Savoy dance hall. Provided, that is, that her twelve-year-old son, growing up much too fast for her liking; the former Glasgow street fighter who’s now her business partner; a stern, handsome NWMP constable; an aging, love-struck ex-boxing champion; a wild assortment of headstrong dancers, croupiers, gamblers, madams without hearts of gold, bar hangers-on, cheechakos, and sourdoughs; and Fiona’s own nimble-fingered past don’t get to her first. And then there’s the dead body on centre stage.

If you loved Gold Digger, check out the next three books of the series, Gold Fever, Gold Mountain, and Gold Web.

In the midst of global turmoil, with people of various faiths in major conflict, three friends—a Muslim, a Christian and a Hindu—decided to write a book. Many Windows is a book about young people who are friends despite their religious differences. It’s a book about celebrations, that ultimately celebrates community. Many Windows is a collection of seven stories about six children who are in the same class at school, two white boys, a black girl, a Chinese girl, an Indian girl and a Pakistani boy. They are not necessarily friends, but they all come together in one commnunity at the end of the stories. Each story in the collection centres on a different celebration within the faith of that child. In the appendix, each of the celebrations is explained in more depth, as it is celebrated within that faith community: Buddhism, Islam, Christianity, Judaism and Hinduism. Each story represents a window into the life of the child, or, from a different point of view, the child’s window looking out to the world.

Book Two of the Klondike Mystery Series by Vicki Delany!

A newcomer to town has secrets Fiona doesn’t want revealed… Its the spring of 1898, and thousands of people, from all corners of the globe, are flooding into the Yukon Territory in the pursuit of gold, the town of Dawson welcomes them all. The beautiful Fiona MacGillivray, the owner of the very successful Savoy dance hall, is happy to make as much money as possible in as short a time as possible. When her twelve-year-old son Angus saves the life of a Native woman intent on suicide, he inadvertently sets off a chain of events that offers his mothers arch-enemy Joey LeBlanc, the madam with a heart of coal, the opportunity to destroy the Savoy Dance Hall once and for all. Unaware of impending danger, Fiona has other concerns: among the new arrivals are a would-be writer with far more tenacity than talent, and her nervous companion. There’s something familiar about the newcomers cut-glass accent, and Fiona MacGillivray is determined to keep her as far away from Angus as possible. Then a killer strikes, and the Mounties are determined to get their man…or woman.

If you loved Gold Fever, check out the next two books of the series, Gold Mountain, and Gold Web

Is it a happy ending? Define happy. Stuart Lewis, thirty-three, in love and content, wakes up one day to find his fiance has left him. Perpetually underemployed and now homeless, Stuart moves onto his mother’s couch. With few connections and no ambition, Stuart is forced to rethink the choices he has made and the sincerity of the life that has just been shattered. Set against the frigid backdrop of downtown Toronto, The Year She Left casts an eclectic bunch of directionless underachievers and unlikely heroes amid the buzz of late night binges and early corporate bustle. Honest and unapologetic about the often detached nature of urban existence, this is the story of what happened in the year she left.

The verdant lushness of Vancouver Island is not without its dangers… Summer on Vancouver Island gets off to a rocky start with the discovery of the body of a homeless man. RCMP Corporal Holly Martin notices drug paraphernalia nearby, and the autopsy reveals death from a combination of heroin and a synthetic opiate. Information leads Holly to believe that he had hidden something of value at the site of his death. As Holly struggles to connect the dots, a record drought heats up the vacation paradise, and one match could send Canadas Caribbean into flames.

Inspector Green explores a web of betrayal and deceit. In the dead of night, the phone rings in the missing persons unit of the Ottawa Police. A brutal blizzard is howling, and a wealthy social activist has not heard from his fiance in over twenty-four hours. Friends, family and police are mobilized to search the snowbound city. He comes to believe that his partner is fleeing for her life, possibly from his own family. When a frozen body is found in the snow, just blocks from the mans home, Green knows that someone is conspiring to keep the truth hidden.

The untold story of scandal and political intrigue in early Toronto. Anna Jameson arrives in the tiny settlement of Toronto in November, 1836. She has come at the request of her estranged husband, but she intends to gather material for a new book, which will eventually be published in England years later. At first, Anna finds herself in an alien world. She has little in common with Toronto women whose interests centre on gossip and their families, but as she begins to move into adventures like sleigh-riding and helping to fight a major fire, she enters a new life. And she also meets man-about-town Sam Jarvis. But Jarvis has a loving wife, a pile of debts and a violent past. The story is told from both their points of view. She travels alone into the wilderness, becomes the first white woman to descend the Sault rapids in a canoe and discovers the joy of freedom. On Manitoulin Island, she and Sam Jarvis meet again. During a long canoe trip down Lake Huron, they wrestle with the conflicts in their relationship and arrive at a settlement.

Anger is simmering under the bucolic facade of Tanglewood vineyard… All Ben Taylor wants is to get away from the police force where he worked undercover for years. The RCMP has cleared his name in an Ottawa shooting, but that hasn’t cleared his conscience. He arrives anonymously at Tanglewood Farms in Southwestern Ontario, where he worked in his youthful summers. Back then, it was a simple family-run vineyard, but it is a far different place today. The farm has become the hub of a powerful family empire. When a body is discovered in a shack on the farm, Ben is drawn into the investigation. Meanwhile, the woman who was once the love of his life now lives as a recluse behind the darkened windows of the farmhouse. As she begins to reveal to Ben her own dark secrets, they become suspects in the eyes of the police, the migrant workers, and even each other.

In this new series by the acclaimed author of the Belle Palmer mysteries, RCMP Corporal Holly Martin takes charge of her first post, a detachment in tiny Fossil Bay on the wild south coast of Vancouver Island. Drunk drivers, speeders and the occasional theft from tourist cars lead the crime roster, but her first day starts with a distress call. A scuba diver has found the body of a girl in the surf. A tragic drowning caused by a fall? The late arrival of tox-scan results for crystal meth, the most recent plague to hit the island, raises ugly questions. Just before Holly makes an arrest, a record-setting typhoon roars in, empowered to destroy everything in its path. As the wind howls and trees crash around her, Holly struggles to survive and to bring a murderer to justice.

Short-listed for the 2010 Arthur Ellis Award for Best Crime Novel

The sparsely populated Arctic is no stranger to murder. The fourth in the Meg Harris series follows Meg’s adventures into the Candian Arctic as she searches for the truth about the disappearance of her father when she was a child. Many years ago, her father’s plane had gone missing in the Arctic and he was never seen again. What happened on that fateful flight? Thirty-six years later, her mother receives some strange Inuit drawings that suggest he might have survived. Intent on discovering the answers, no matter how painful, Meg travels to Iqaluit to find the artist and is sucked into the world of Inuit art forgery. Arctic Blue Death is not only a journey into Meg’s past and the events that helped shape the person she is today, but it’s also a journey into the land of the Inuit and the culture that has sustained them for thousands of years. Finalist for the Arthur Ellis Award for best crime novel.

This is the fourth book in the Meg Harris Mystery series. The next book is A Green Place for Dying.

After her mothers suicide, Maja Cleary turned her back on her family and Duved Cove, Minnesotauntil a desperate phone call reveals that her father has been murdered and her brother Jonas is the prime suspect. She flies home, knowing that she will have to confront shared memories of an abusive father. Even as she works to prove her brothers innocence, she cannot ignore the evidence that he had every reason to kill their father. The frigid, stormy Minnesota landscape sets the mood as she battles against time, the local police and the relentless snow.

Camilla MacPhee is the black sheep of her perfect, blonde family, although she runs a law office specializing in Justice for Victims of violent crimes. However, her uneasy association with the world of crime takes a bizarre turn when a vicious, vindictive fashion columnist with underworld connections named Mitzi Brochu is crucified in a downtown hotel room. The problem is that Camilla’s best friend Robin was on her way to meet the victim, and has become the main suspect. Camilla sets out to vindicate her friend, but finding the real killer isn’t easy, as just about anyone among the politicians and supermodels skewered by Mitzi’s rapier wit could be said to have had ample motive. The investigation turns dangerous, as Camilla receives cryptic warnings while following a grisly killer’s trail marked by more murders of humans and felines. The cast of characters includes a sleazy rock promoter, a nosy, sherry-mad old lady, a suave but mysterious hotel manager, a grumpy Mountie, and several manipulative sisters in this seriously funny first mystery novel by Mary Jane Maffini.

One of Canada’s best-loved sleuths returns in her sixth hair-raising adventure. Victims’ advocate Camilla MacPhee is following the trial of Lloyd Brugel, a ruthless criminal kingpin charged with a fatal firebombing. Shes looking forward to seeing him convicted, but when his sleazy counsel is found dead, it conveniently delays the proceedings. The lawyer, no saint himself, was drowned and shot. In case that message was too subtle, an old joke featuring dead lawyers shows up. Camilla soon learns the victim was not the only member of the Ottawa legal profession whose death was heralded by a tasteless attempt at humour. Is Brugel reaching from behind the bars of the regional detention centre to manipulate his trial and to exact revenge? Camilla does her stubborn best to head off the killer, hampered by her annoying assistant, the police, her bossy sisters and the arrival of her possible stepdaughters-to-be for the Dragon Boat Races.

Circumstances force Dag, a young snowboarder, to give up his sport and to find another way to live. He embarks on two paths, the first a subsistence job as a barista in a coffee mega-chain, where he works hard to be a worker extraordinaire. He also invents an online alter ego who pronounces his own brand of wisdom and rant, expressing what Dag can’t in his role of coffee slave. Dag doesn’t know who he is any more. Crapped out of his sport. Can do no right by his best friend. Can do no wrong by his girl roommate. Pursued by the corporate paranoia of his coffee overlords. Baiting the world with his blog. Dag’s brewing a 21st century identity crisis that will scald everyone in his path.

In the third Camilla MacPhee Mystery, Camilla’s looking forward to cutting loose at Ottawa’s Bluesfest, the huge open-air extravaganza, and to seeing the tail end of her annoying office assistant, Alvin, who is finally quitting. Then the news comes from the East Coast. Alvin’s younger brother Jimmy has vanished from the midst of a Canada Day crowd in Sydney, Nova Scotia. Is he dead? Has he been abducted? Sleuthing irritably about Sydney on Alvin’s behalf, Camilla manages to make the usual quota of people froth at the mouth, including Jimmy’s frantic family, forlorn friends and puzzled teachers. She doesn’t spare the parish priest or even the guy at the chip stand. Before Camilla knows it, all roads lead back to Ottawa, where a killer with everything to lose waits to create havoc among the tents, guitar-pickers and happy, swaying crowds. If Camilla doesn’t sort out this whole mess, how many other people are going to die?

Winston Patrick reluctantly leads some kids in suing their school when a same-sex partner is refused entry to the prom, but opponents will stop at nothing to make their point, not even murder.

Winston Patrick was a successful lawyer who defended the downtrodden of Vancouver’s criminal world. Dissatisfied with his career, he traded in the courtroom for the high school classroom. Winston is barely surviving his first year at a Vancouver high school when his students present a human rights issue. A student wants to bring his same-sex partner to the high school prom, but the school won’t let him.

Winston reluctantly leads his proteges on their first legal quest: suing the school. He never thought that fighting for a student’s rights could have deadly consequences, but as the issue gains publicity, Winston discovers that their opponents will stop at nothing to make their point not even murder.

David Russell’s first Winston Patrick novel, Deadly Lessons, was shortlisted for an Arthur Ellis Award for best first crime novel.

A mute Mayan girl held captive in a crate in the Guatemalan jungle, a big-city psychoanalyst with a rescue complex, and a journalist with a broken heart are the characters in Sheila Dalton’s second literary novel.

Caitlin Shaughnessy, a Canadian journalist, discovers that Inez, a traumatized young Mayan woman originally from Guatemala, has killed Caitlin’s psychoanalyst partner, Dr. Jerry Simpson. Simpson brought the girl, who may be autistic, back to Canada as an act of mercy and to attempt to treat her obvious trauma. Cailin desperately needs to find out why this terrible incident occurred so she can find the strength to forgive and move on with her life.

Inez, whose sense of wonder and innocence touches all who meet her, becomes a focal point for many of the Canadians who encounter her. As Caitlin struggles to uncover the truth about Inez’s relationship with Jerry, Inez struggles to break free of the projections of others. Each must confront her own anger and despair. The doctors in the north have an iciness that matches their surroundings, a kind of clinical armour that Caitlin must penetrate if she is to reach Inez.

The Girl in the Box is a psychological drama of the highest order and a gripping tale of intrigue and passion.