Nominated for the Arthur Ellis Best Novel Award and shortlisted for the 2011 Evergreen Award. This complex, multi-layered thriller opens with a hero's welcome for the wounded Wilf McLauchlin, a celebrated WWII Canadian Spitfire fighter pilot. Almost immediately after his homecoming, a series of bizarre murders erupt in his hometown. Wilf finds himself trying to solve them and wondering if he is somehow causing them. Wilf follows his own trail back to when he was shot down over Germany in the last days of the war and makes the shattering connection.

James W. Nichol is best known to CBC Radio listeners as the author of two popular and long-running mystery series: "Midnight Cab" and "Peggy Delaney." He has been writing for radio, film, television, and theatre since 1964, and is the author of the critically acclaimed play Sainte-Marie among the Hurons. His 1989 radio adaptation of The Stone Angel was so successful that he wrote a stage version, which continues to be performed in theatres across Canada. This mesmerizing radio dramatization, originally released on cassette and now in a CD edition, features such well-known actors as Janet Wright, Richard Donat, and Ted Dykstra, as well as a haunting musical score.

James W. Nichol's profile page

• Short-listed, OLA Evergreen Award
• Nominated, Arthur Ellis Best Novel Award

"Nichol displays a provocative talent for writing that gets under your skin ... Death Spiral deepens this rich capacity with stylish and edgy writing to give us a confrontational piece of addictive fiction."

Hamilton Spectator

"Leave it to Nichol to find the right ending for this unforgettable story."

The Chronicle-Herald

"Excellent...perfect for the Second World War buff, as well as fans of good Canadian crime fiction."

The Globe and Mail

"Nichol has served up a fast-paced yet nuanced story that explores the cost of war on those who fight it, and demonstrates that the postwar home front was not with- out its own terrors."

Sherbrooke Record