Douglas Glover's raucous first novel was a finalist for the Books in Canada First Novel Award and sold out its first and only print run in just one month. Now mystery fans and readers of literary fiction alike can once again enjoy this witty post-modern detective tale by the author of Elle.

The eponymous central character in Precious is a boozy, burned-out reporter with an embarrassing nickname and a penchant for getting into trouble. After three failed marriages and a humiliating stint in a Greek jail, he will do anything for the quiet life. A job as woman's page editor for the Ockenden Star-Leader seems like just the ticket — that is, until town gossip Rose Oxley winds up dead with a pair of scissors lodged in her chest.

Suddenly Precious finds himself embroiled in a hilariously over-the-top murder mystery, brimming with delicious satire about the newspaper business and culminating in a characteristically outrageous Gloverian showdown with firearms, snowmobiles, and booze. Inviting comparisons with the novels of Jasper Fforde and Ross MacDonald, Precious deftly combines an ingenious literary parody with the plot of a richly satisfying mystery.

William Kennedy, the author of Ironweed, has called Douglas Glover "a very astute literary mind and an excEllent writer . . . a writer of substance," and Philip Marchand has called him "one of the most important Canadian writers of his generation." Even though he is always working outside the box, his books have gained acclaim from the most attentive critics. A Guide to Animal Behaviour was a finalist for the Governor General's Award; H.J. Kirchoff selected The Life and Times of Captain N. as a Globe and Mail top-ten paperback of 2001; and 16 Categories of Desire was a finalist for the Rogers Writers' Trust Award for Fiction. Douglas Glover is a Canadian itinerant. He grew up on the family tobacco farm in southwestern Ontario, studied philosophy at York University and the University of Edinburgh, then worked on a series of daily newspapers in New Brunswick, Ontario, Quebec and Saskatchewan before earning his MFA at the Iowa Writers' Workshop in 1982. He has written story collections, novels and a book of essays. Glover's fiction has been translated into Spanish, Japanese, Russian, and French, and his stories have been frequently anthologized, notably in The Best American Short Stories, Best Canadian Stories, The Journey Prize Anthology, The Macmillan Anthology and The New Oxford Book of Canadian Stories. Since he washed up in the upstate New York hinterlands in the early 90s, Glover has taught at Skidmore College, Colgate University, the State University of New York at Albany, and Vermont College. For two years he produced and hosted The Book Show, a weekly radio literary interview program that originated at WAMC in Albany and was syndicated on various public radio stations and around the world on Voice of America and the Armed Forces Network. He has two sons, Jacob and Jonah, who, he says, will no doubt turn out better than he did.

Douglas Glover's profile page

"Sheer high spirits make it a jolly Canadian extravaganza."

<i>Globe and Mail</i>