Canada may play second fiddle to the United States in geopolitics, but its writers are second to none. The books profiled in this post are all mysteries published this year. The locations, fictional and real, urban and remote, often play as big a role in the stories as the humans do. Mostly dark as a Saskatchewan winter night, these tales show a grimmer side of the "nice neighbor" to the north.
In his series opener, Scott Thornley gives us a detective hero reminiscent of P.D. James' Adam Dalgliesh. Detective Superintendent MacNeice and his team are trying to find the who and why of a murdered violinist, artfully displayed in a beach house not far from the fictional, industrial city of Dundurn in southern Ontario. There's backstory aplenty, almost as good as Walter Mosley, and just a whiff of romance. Those who like James and Mosley with a touch of melancholy may find much to like in Erasing Memory
Bleeding Darkness
