Murder casts a long shadow, reaching from fabled Easter Island in the South Pacific to the desolate shores of Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic. Detective Miranda Quin of the Toronto Police Service takes time off to write a mystery in the tropics and gets trapped in a sinister plot with global implications. Her partner in homicide, David Morgan, is left alone to resolve the case of a beautiful corpse on a Toronto Island yacht and ends up precariously compromised in the mysterious North.
Their stories converge when they both return to Toronto. They discover themselves trapped in a labyrinth of deadly complexity, and the only way out is together. Much more than their own survival depends on it. Islands, they learn, are an illusion. Everything connects, especially when murder is involved.

John Moss writes mysteries because nothing brings life into focus like the murder of strangers. Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2006 in recognition of his career as a professor of Canadian literature with over a score of books in his field, John moved progressively away from literary criticism to creative writing, before settling comfortably into the Quin and Morgan series which now occupies his writing efforts full time. He and his wife, Beverley Haun, whose book, Inventing ‘Easter Island’, grew out of her work as a cultural theorist and their travel adventures as scuba divers, share a stone farmhouse with numerous ghosts in Peterborough, Ontario. 

John Moss' profile page

…the super intelligent repartee between detective sergeants David Morgan and Miranda Quin makes the plot almost irrelevant. Keeping up with the twists, turns, and tangents in their conversation is a work of detection in itself.

Millbrook Times

...intricate, erudite and cleverly written. Readers who share Moss's taste in the unique will enjoy his novel.

The London Free Press

In the annals of fictional crime detection, Quin and Morgan are unique. I can hardly wait to see where theyll get to in the next installment of their weird and wonderful careers.

Towncrier.com

The author's murder methods are unique and challenge the reader, and his humour is wry and intelligent.

Reviewingtheevidence.com

It's clear that John Moss has a winning combo. Quin and Morgan are professionally and fictionally workable, and Reluctant Dead is the best so far.

Globe and Mail