Victor & Me in Paris is one of the great books we've got up for giveaway until the end of January. 

Check out our giveaways page for your chance to win and to check out everything else we've got on offer. 

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As I celebrate the launch of a new series, I’ve been reflecting on when I first started writing mystery fiction. It was a time when writers in this country were still fighting the publishers’ desires to make locations an unnamed midwestern US city and removing all references to loonies and Tim Hortons and the CBC, fearing that the books would lose a readership if they were too obviously Canadian. And yet we persevered, adding mention of Stanfields underwear, halfsacks of beer, Petrocan stations, and sprinkling extra U’s throughout our words.

So, here is a list of first mystery books by writers who carved a path for all the rest of us, making me brave enough to fight to be gleefully and murderously Canadian. 

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The Night the Gods Smiled: A Charlie Salter Mystery, by Eric Wright

Eric was originally from Britain, and a lovely man to interview when I wrote a feature on him for the Edmonton Journal. His first novel plays with the distinctions of the Ontario and Quebec police forces, and what happens when a crime straddles the border. He also paid attention to how crime in Canada, when there were fewer guns, was so very distinct from that portrayed by our southern neighbours.

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Dead in the Water: A Reid Bennett Mystery, by Ted Wood

Also originally from England, Ted Wood brought the hard-boiled action hero into the backwoods of Ontario, where Reid and his dog patrol and keep the law singlehandedly. The mean streets may not be paved, but they are just as violent as any devised by Hammett or Chandler.

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The Suspect: A Karl Alberg and Cassandra Mitchell Mystery, by LR Wright 

Bunny Wright delivered the small town of Sechelt on the Sunshine Coast of BC into the big leagues with this novel, where an RCMP Staff Sergeant and the town librarian solve murders. She told me once that she had deliberately superimposed a made up map of Sechelt (turned one turn counter clockwise) so that readers wouldn’t come to town and start pointing at “the murder house” that perfectly innocent people were living in.

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The Suicide Murders: Benny Cooperman Mystery, by Howard Engel

Howard created the ultimate Canadian detective with Benny Cooperman, the “soft-boiled detective,” who is so firmly embedded in his community that he has no anonymity whatsoever, and still manages to be a useful P.I. Howard was also a wonderful, generous man. I called him out of the blue, since his number was connected to the listing for the Crime Writers of Canada at the time and said, “I’ve written a mystery novel, what do I do now?” and we talked for two hours.

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The Dead Pull Hitter: A Kate Henry Mystery, by Alison Gordon

With her background as a sports writer, Alison offered a female detective in a predominantly male world, as Kate Henry solves mysteries connected to the Toronto baseball team she covers. Fun and acerbic and gone too soon, Alison gave us another Canadian first, with her sexy and appealing feminist detective.

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Healthy Wealthy and Dead: A Phoebe Fairfax Mystery, by Suzanne North   

I would be remiss if I didn’t promote the other first mystery series in Alberta, that written by my good friend, Suzanne North (we both had our first mysteries come out in 1994, which is how we met). Phoebe, a television camerawoman living in Southern Alberta comes across zany and dangerous situations while working for a weekly lifestyle show.  Suzanne also wrote the acclaimed non-mystery novel Flying Time, set in Calgary just prior to WWII, which should be on everyone’s radar. We lost Suzanne in 2020, and the world is the poorer for that.

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Learn more Victor & Me in Paris:

When retired academic Imogene Durant finds herself in Paris with Victor Hugo as her guide, a series of disturbing discoveries are made in local hotels. While Imogene hopes to settle in, read, and write a follow up to her acclaimed book, Fyodor & Me in Russia, she’s drawn into the mystery by her new friend and neighbour, the police detective assigned to the case.

Janice MacDonald’s new series introduces Imogene Durant, a retired Comparative Literature professor, whose goal is to read and cogitate on a great work of literature while visiting the place it was written, to write about it. Unfortunately, life (and death) tend to intervene on her best laid travel plans. The first book, Victor & Me in Paris (Ravenstone, an imprint of Turnstone Press) launched in November 2024 and was the #1 bestselling book in Alberta that week. Her previous series, the Randy Craig Mysteries, are all set in and around Edmonton, Alberta, and was the first mystery series set there.