In this new mystery series set on the islands off the coast of British Columbia and Washington State, Noel Franklin and Kyra Rachel team up to form Islands Investigations International. Quickly they come to realize that some crimes respect no boundaries. Their first job takes Noel and Kyra to Gabriola Island and the unsolved murder of an art gallery groundskeeper. The vicious rumours surrounding the case take several sinister turns, leading them into grave personal danger. As each investigator falls prey to those they need to trust, Kyra and Noel discover that even charming island communities can keep deadly secrets.

The Islands Investigations International team is back! This time, Kyra Rachel and Noel Franklin are sleuthing around Quadra Island in the employ of Noel’s old high school buddy, Jason Cooper. In a quiet wooded area of the island, Jason, his wife, and two younger boys are worried for the oldest son in the family. Derek was discovered badly beaten in the woods by Campbell River and has remained in a deep coma for three weeks. Desperate to find out what happened to his son and why, Jason hires Noel and Kyra. As the two get to know the sleepy island community, they’re surprised to discover that Derek may have been in on a drug deal—but why? Others in the community describe him as a decent young man with a good head on his shoulders—what could have possibly pushed him to deal in drugs? Kyra and Noel aren’t even certain the drug deal is connected to the attack, so who would want to hurt this young man and why? Kyra and Noel are determined to find out what circumstances could have drawn this happy family into such dark territory.

A tribute to nature’s influence on the creative process, Bog Tender is a stunning memoir that explores nature and the act of writing, and where the two intersect. Accomplished fiction author George Szanto lives and writes on a bog that cuts his property in two. Rather than filling in the wetland, he has embraced it as a site of inspiration. Pieced together in 12 chapters—one for each month of the year—this enchanting narrative explores how Szanto’s writing process is affected by the bog’s transformations throughout the seasons. Through each chapter, the author searches for the moments of greatest consequence to him, from his parents’ escape from Hitler’s Vienna to his time spent studying in Germany, and from meeting his future wife and becoming a parent, to his adventures in Mexico. Set in a place where city is left behind for rural space, Bog Tender is about home and the intricate connections that evolve under and above the water.

Jack Tartarus, a photographer, has returned to his family’s house on Crab, an island off the east coast of Vancouver Island. After mulling it over for ten years, Jack has decided to tear his family’s house down, board-by-board, just as his father built it up. He purchases a wrecking bar. Struggling with the first piece of siding, his wrecking bar jammed between ancient planks, it seems the house is determined to remain. The people on Crab Island are also angrily opposed to his plan—including his responsible sister, his self-centered niece, a beautiful woman he knew intimately long ago, and Turtle, the hardware store clerk and the island’s self-proclaimed guardian. In a story about families and family history, Jack’s calculated plans for demolition are fired by the memory of his parents and the other losses he has felt. Like the others who have retreated to Crab Island, Jack has come to a place where he must make peace with the house, in order to construct his future.

'Island Genres, Genre Islands' moves the debate about literature and place onto new ground by exploring the island settings of bestsellers. Through a focus on four key genres—crime fiction, thrillers, popular romance fiction, and fantasy fiction—Crane and Fletcher show that genre is fundamental to both the textual representation of real and imagined islands and to actual knowledges and experiences of islands. The book offers broad, comparative readings of the significance of islandness in each of the four genres as well as detailed case studies of major authors and texts. These include chapters on Agatha’s Christie’s islands, the role of the island in ‘Bondspace,’ the romantic islophilia of Nora Roberts’s Three Sisters Island series, and the archipelagic geography of Ursula Le Guin’s Earthsea. Crane and Fletcher’s book will appeal to specialists in literary studies and cultural geography, as well as in island studies.

"Duncan and Szanto bring their A-game to this daring and complex novel."—Lou Allin, Crime Writers of Canada Sandro Vasiliadis, a nurse at the Whidbey Island General Hospital, has died of an apparent heroin overdose. When his grieving mother bends over to kiss her son’s corpse at the viewing, she shrieks, “That’s not Sandro!” Convinced that her son must still be alive, Maria Vasiliadis hires Kyra Rachel and Noel Franklin to solve the mystery. With questions of foul play continuing to swirl around the death, the detectives’ inquiries lead them deeper into Sandro’s life and eventually to a medical clinic that specializes in transgendering. The second in the Islands Investigations International Mystery series, Always Kiss the Corpse takes Kyra and Noel’s investigation from the rush of Seattle to the seeming peace of the San Juan Islands in this thrilling page-turner. It’s only once the detectives come to understand Sandro in life that they unlock the secret to his death.

In the fourth mystery in the Islands Investigations International series, Noel Franklin and Kyra Rachel are called to Moresby University on San Juan Island to investigate a case of possible plagiarism. As they look into the theft, the two get to know the small island’s university. They soon discover another, more menacing crime: the daughter of a professor engaged in highly sensitive research has been kidnapped. And her ransom is a piece of intellectual property far greater than any manuscript. While Noel and Kyra navigate the murky waters of university politics and come closer to discovering the origins of the crimes and their perpetrators, their lives are first threatened and then terrorized. Kyra, an insurance investigator, and Noel, a former journalist, pair up their sleuthing skills once again in Always Love a Villain on San Juan Island, as they investigate crimes and mysteries in the Pacific Northwest.

�â�€�œStories of desire, chance, promise, brought from the down below. Against the rules of heaven, what hope is there?�â�€� Ted tells stories. High on a cloud above Mount Washington, he peers down at the earth, listening to the memories of the mortal folk he watches. Lola, once a famous Hollywood bombshell, now a god, listens to his stories. Ted�â�€�™s words capture her heart, just as she captured the hearts of her fans. Down on Earth, three families experience joy, tragedy, hope, and loss. Milton and Theresa are activists, conservationists, parents, lovers, fighters. Johnnie Cochan is a self-styled ecological leader, haunted by sadness and fear. And Carney is a disaster recovery specialist who can quench an oil-platform fire but finds love hard to hold onto. Through their attractions and battles, their futures become bound, as Cochan�â�€�™s vision for a new utopia, a massive construction project, threatens to rupture everything. Whatever Lola Wants is story about stories�â�€�”those we tell others, and those that fill us up. It is also about the stories we tell ourselves and the ways they make us who we are�â�€�”admired artists, despised monsters, adored immortals.

Silas Seaweed is back on the beat as the street-smart Coast Salish cop. A gardener is found dead and the prime suspects are two young local party girls. Silas is handed the case that soon takes a bloodier turn when a policeman’s wife is killed. Silas begins to suspect that these murders and other events are related to the recent tide of gang-related crimes that has been sweeping British Columbia. Just as he draws closer to finding concrete evidence, Silas finds his own reputation in danger and is suspended from the police force. His quest to clear his name and find the killers leads him from Victoria’s loud and steamy nightclubs and bars to the remote and quiet islands of Desolation Sound. The fifth mystery in this popular series, Seaweed in the Soup is a thrilling and suspenseful tale that skilfully combines a hard-boiled mystery narrative with the mythology of the Coast Salish. PRAISE FOR SEAWEED ON THE ROCKS (BOOK FOUR) “This series just keeps getting better and better. Rich descriptors evoke colour and emotion . . . In places the high energy feels like a hundred-yard dash.”—Hamilton Spectator “As clever and sparkly as the first three. Evans’ combination of light mystery and Salish mythology is fun.”— Globe and Mail

Pretensions, conspiracy, lies ... all play a part in this riveting book that kicks off TouchWood Editions’ new mystery series featuring Coast Salish investigator Silas Seaweed. A billionaire’s daughter with an unsavoury past has mysteriously disappeared. Silas Seaweed, a savvy, street-smart investigator based in Victoria, B.C., is put on the case. His search for the young woman leads him on a trail of murder, greed and obsessive violence. Overcoming such obstacles as a pair of ruthless cocaine dealers, the murder of key witnesses and a failed attempt on his own life, Seaweed perseveres in his quest to bring a master criminal to justice, his journey taking him from the darker side of Victoria’s downtown to Nevada’s glittering casinos. Blending modern-day crime detection with age-old Coast Salish ritual, Seaweed on the Street is an absorbing, suspenseful page-turner with a pace that never lets up from the first page to the last.