Music may soothe the savage breast, but in this fifth collection of witty and wicked crime fiction from the Ladies’ Killing Circle, music provides the background for tales of murder and mayhem. Eighteen stories by Canadian women crime writers along with poems from Joy Hewitt Mann take their inspiration from titles as varied as the upbeat "Wake Up Little Suzie" through the romantic "Summertime" and musicals such as "There’s No Business Like Show Business". It’s a collection you won’t want to put down until you’ve read every one and hummed all the tunes. You’ll never listen to your favourite songs again without wondering what nefarious deeds they may have inspired.

Joan Boswell was born in Toronto and grew up in Ottawa, Edmonton, Oakville and Halifax. She received her BA from the University of New Brunswick, married and moved to the Northern Quebec bush. After two years she and her husband relocated to London, Ontario, where she attended Teachers’ College and taught on the Six Nations Oneida Indian Reserve. Moving to Ottawa, she obtained an MA in Canadian Studies from Carleton University and a PhD from the University of Ottawa. Her thesis grew out of her experience with and interest in the Six Nations. During her many years in academia she won several prizes as well as a Ford Foundation Fellowship, and Canada Council grants. These enabled her to continue her studies and pay for sitters to care for her four sons who grew up hating the sound of the typewriter. Throughout her life, she has painted and eventually the compulsion to improve and spend more time being creative overwhelmed her and she returned to the University of Ottawa to complete the course work for a BFA. After ten solo shows and four posters produced by Posters International, she again switched her focus. This time writing was the attraction. She attended the Humber School of Writing and took a Humber College Correspondence Course with Isabel Huggin. As a writer, Joan has had work published in magazines and anthologies in Canada and the United States. As a member of the Ladies’ Killing Circle, she has had stories in each of their six books: The Ladies’ Killing Circle, Cottage Country Killers, Menopause Is Murder, Fit to Die, Bone Dance and When Boomers Go Bad. She has also co-edited the last three books. In 2000, she won the $10,000 Toronto Sunday Star short story contest. Cut Off His Tale was her first novel. The second in the Hollis Grant series, Cut to the Quick, followed in 2007, and the third, Cut to the Chase, in 2009.

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