"There are strange things done in the midnight sun By the men who moil for gold;The Arctic trails have their secret tales That would make your blood run cold."

Robert W. Service, "The Cremation of Sam McGee."

The High Arctic has long been a land of romance, a magnet drawing adventurers. From the 60th Parallel to the North Pole across the tundra and the Barren Lands, the Far North has beckoned the brave, the foolhardy, and the curious. The mystery of the Land of the Midnight Sun has fascinated poets and writers, painters and sculptors, no less than scientists and explorers. In this anthology, a spectrum of Canadian writers explore in their imaginations crime and malfeasance and thrilling danger under the flickering Northern Lights. Come mushing down these secret trails with John Ballem, John Buchan, Rose De Shaw, Carol Newhouse, Marjorie Pickthall, James Powell, Peter Sellers, Robert W. Service, and Eric Wright, as they probe the wilderness of human evil in this entertaining melange of short stories old and new. From the paleolithic to high-tech oil drilling, the enduring saga of crime and punishment is told by these talented story-spinners in these tales of detection, mystery, and adventure.

David Skene-Melvin has edited Crime in a Cold Climate (1994); Investigating Women: Female Detectives by Canadian Writers (1995); Bloody York: Tales of Mayhem, Murder, and Mystery in Toronto Past, Present, and Future (1996); and Secret Tales of the Arctic Trails: Stories of Crime and Adventure in Canada's Far North (1997) He is also the compiler, assisted by Norbert Spehner, of Canadian Crime Fiction 1817-1996: An Annotated Comprehensive Bibliography and Biographical Dictionary of Canadian Crime Writers (1996), covering both English and French-Canadian crime fiction, as well as co-compiler, with his wife Ann, of Crime, Detective, Espionage, Mystery, and Thriller Fiction & Film: A Comprehensive Bibliography of Critical Writing Through 1979 (1980). In addition, he has written numerous articles on and reviews of Canadian crime writing.

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