Interview with C.J. Cooke
C.J. Cooke is the award-winning author of The Boy Who Could See Demons (2012), critically appraised by The New York Times, The Guardian, Booklist, Publisher’s Weekly, and The New York Review of Books. She is also the author of I Know My Name, a No. 1 iBooks bestseller. Her latest novel, The Lighthouse Witches, has…
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 Perfect Lie by Jo Spain
I’ll admit it. Jo Spain had me from the first chapter in her latest thriller, The Perfect Lie, set in Newport, Long Island. Maybe it was the protagonist, Erin Kennedy being an Irish ex-pat. I live with one of those. Which sort of makes me Irish by injection. Or maybe it was Erin’s Bellport Bay…
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…
Women in the Mob
In Starr Sign, my second novel in the Candace Starr Crime Series, Candace infiltrates her estranged Detroit mafia family, the Scarpellos, in search of her mother, Angela. In honour of the fictitious Scarpello clan (and Candace), I bring you some real-life women who made their mark in the male-dominated world of organized crime. Virginia Hill…
Still Life by Val McDermid
Still Life begins with a corpse being pulled out of the Firth of Forth by a group of lobster fishermen. Definitely not your typical catch of the day. The body belongs to a man who was a suspect in his brother’s disappearance and probable murder over a decade ago, but he did a runner when…
Elizabeth Báthory, the Blood Countess
It’s Halloween and as such my mind turns to the macabre, which when I think about it, isn’t an event exclusively restricted to Oct 31st. I mean, after all, l wrote a book about a spiritual pilgrimage across Northern Spain and put walking dead people on it (Petra’s Ghost). But even my deep affection for…
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 Erin Ruddy
BIO ERIN RUDDY is a writer, editor, and award-winning journalist. She is currently the executive editor at MediaEdge Communications. She lives in Toronto. Q&A Your debut novel, Tell Me My Name, is a nail-biting, domestic noir set in cottage country. What inspired you to write a story in this genre and this setting? The idea…
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…