crime

The Greatest Hits of Wanda Jaynes by Bridget Canning

If F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby defined a time period, then Bridget Canning’s The Greatest Hits of Wanda Jaynes is a book defined by a time period, and that time period is now. 2017. Technology and social media figure so prominently in Wanda Jaynes that this book could not have been written 10 or 15 years ago, for 2007 was still the email age; texting, YouTube, and the rise of the ubiquitous smartphone were yet to come.… Continue reading

Shadow of Doubt: The Trial of Dennis Oland by Bobbi-Jean MacKinnon

It’s not very often you get to review two books covering the same topic practically back-to-back. Such is the case this month (October) with the coverage of the Dennis Oland trial. Dennis Oland was convicted of second-degree murder in the bludgeoning death of his father millionaire Richard Oland in 2011.… Continue reading

Black River Road cover

Black River Road by Debra Komar

Canadian author and retired forensic anthropologist Debra Komar has written her fourth book examining a historical crime, Black River Road (2016, Goose Lane Editions)*. Subtitled “An Unthinkable Crime, an Unlikely Suspect, and the Question of Character”, Ms. Komar searched back through historical court records to find this unique case of a murder committed outside the city of Saint John, New Brunswick in 1869.… Continue reading

Straw Man (A Jack McMorrow Mystery #11) by Gerry Boyle

: Straw Man was the winner of the 2017 Maine Literary Award for Crime Fiction!

Islandport Books has released book #11 in the Jack McMorrow Mystery series by Maine author Gerry Boyle. I previously reviewed #10 Once Burned and said that the hard-boiled detective created by Dashiell Hammett is alive and well and living in rural Maine, working as a freelance writer/reporter.… Continue reading

What Killed Jane Creba by Anita Arvast

Subtitled Rap, Race, and the Invention of a Gang War, What Killed Jane Creba (2016, Dundurn) is an investigative look into the circumstances surrounding the accidental shooting death of a girl in downtown Toronto in 2005.

It was Boxing Day (December 26th) and Jane Creba was in downtown Toronto outside the Eaton Center with thousands of other people.… Continue reading