From the CCC (no, not that CCC, or that one, or that one…), a list of 2009 must-reads set in Canada… See the full list here
Michael Blair, Depth of Field: A Granville Island Mystery
Little does Tom McCall know how much he will regret accepting an assignment from the beautiful Anna Waverley to photograph her boat for a potential buyer. Double-booked, he turns the assignment over to his partner and best friend, Bobbi.
When Bobbi is brutally beaten and left for dead, McCall is determined to find out who did it. When he learns that Anna Waverley doesn't actually own the boat she was supposedly interested in selling – and, in fact, that the woman claiming to be Anna Waverley may have been an imposter – he thinks he knows where to start his investigation.
Vicki Delany, Valley of the Lost: A Constable Molly Smith Mystery
In the bucolic mountain town of Trafalgar, B.C., a young woman is found dead of a heroin overdose, her baby at her side. Marks of restraint indicate that it wasn't an accident. Before the police can discover who killed her, and why, they first have to find out who she was.
As the case becomes increasingly personal for them both, Probationary Constable Molly Smith and Sergeant John Winters are plunged into the strange netherworld of a young woman who didn't exist and a town that was happy to let her remain that way.
José Latour, Crime of Fashion
"I, Jennifer Scheindlin, an infidel, have been captured by a unit of the Islamic Army of Canada."
These are the last words that Elliot Steil expects to hear when he plays a DVD delivered to him anonymously in his Miami office. Steil is shocked. Jenny is a former fashion model, and Steil worked for Jenny's father for many years until his death. Determined to rescue her, Steil turns for help to a colleague, who enlists the aid of two Israeli agents. Together, they formulate a devious, watertight plan to get a ransom to Toronto and Jenny home. But nothing and no one is as it seems…
Rick Mofina, Six Seconds (a stand-alone global thriller)
A California mother's anguished search for her abducted son and a haunted Mountie's investigation into an American reporter's mysterious death in the Canadian Rockies uncover a global plot to assassinate the Pope…using the woman's boy as the weapon.
"Six Seconds should be Rick Mofina's breakout thriller. It moves like a tornado." – James Patterson, #1 New York Times bestselling author
"Echoing Ludlum and Forsythe…(a) big international thriller that grabs your gut – and your heart – and never lets go." – Jeffrey Deaver, New York Times bestselling author
"Everything we need from a great thriller." – Lee Child, #1 New York Times bestselling author
Robert Rotenberg, Old City Hall
Old City Hall opens with Canada's leading radio show host, Kevin Brace, coming to the door of his luxury condominium with his hands covered in blood and telling the newspaper delivery man: "I killed her." The "her" in question is his young wife, whose stabbed body lies in the bathtub of their suite.
These are the last words Brace will speak. In what appears to be a watertight case of the murder of his young wife, he makes no attempt to explain or justify her killing .But are things as straightforward as they seem?
A legal thriller that brilliantly recreates the growing tension of a major murder investigation, Old City Hall is populated by a wonderful cast of characters, and what begins as a seemingly open-and-shut case soon develops into a fascinating, intricately plotted web of lies and hidden motives, punctuated by genuine heroism.
Jon Wells, Post-Mortem: Justice at Last for Yvette Budram
In April 2001, a jogger on a country road notices something off in a ditch. Bones? Hair? It is a human skeleton. The jogger phones 911, and homicide investigators from the police service in Hamilton, Ontario, report to the scene, setting in motion an incredible investigation, a "true CSI story" in which detectives must first find the victim before they can find the killer.
The near-mummified remains are that of a woman, but police have nothing else to go on – no weapon, no crime scene. They enlist the help of experts, including a forensic anthropologist and forensic entomologist (known as "the Bug Lady"). When a cutting-edge forensic procedures allows the police to crack the mystery of the victim's identity, the chase heats up…with a twist.
