The starter’s gun explodes, and Hollis Grant excitedly begins her very first marathon race, only to stumble almost immediately over a body lying in the road, the body of the Reverend Paul Robertson, her soon-to-be ex-husband. When the crush of runners passes and the medics arrive, it becomes clear that the Reverend has not collapsed from the rigours of the race, but has been brutally stabbed. Although Hollis has emotionally distanced herself from her husband some time ago, her challenge now - before the police make her, as the estranged wife, the prime suspect - is to find out who, among his many detractors, would hate the Reverend enough to stick a knife in his back. Could it be a parishioner at his church who dislikes his activist stance towards gay marriage? Could it be one troubled soul among the many who have sought his psychological counselling and then found themselves laid bare in the Reverend’s latest book? Or could it be the angry husband of one of the church ladies whom the charming Reverend has bedded? As Hollis and Detective Rhona Simpson probe the secretive life of Paul Robertson, they discover multiple motives for hatred and murder. As the murderer comes after Hollis herself, the solution to his murder takes on the urgency of life and death.

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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