PERSISTENT GUILT NOW IN PRODUCTION

I'm very pleased to be able to announce that PERSISTENT GUILT, the third installment in the March and Walker Crime Novel series, is now in production. The scheduled release date is August 3, 2018.

PERSISTENT GUILT is a police procedural featuring homicide investigators of the Ontario Provincial Police. The series is set in Leeds County, Ontario, which is located on the St. Lawrence Seaway corridor between Toronto and Montreal.

On a cold morning in late April, a man and his dog discover the nude body of a young woman in the ditch alongside the picturesque Thousand Islands Parkway in Leeds County. The woman was stabbed repeatedly before being dumped.

Detective Constable Kevin Walker of the Ontario Provincial Police discovers that the victim worked for a high school acquaintance of his. Kyle Baldwin now runs a charity that raises funds for mobile medical clinics in Kenya, but he had a brief affair with the victim several years ago that ended badly.

At the same time, Detective Inspector Ellie March is investigating the mayor of the nearby city of Brockville for alleged criminal wrongdoing. With two cases to manage, she and Kevin Walker must determine if the mayor is somehow connected to a wider circle of crime or if Kevin's acquaintance murdered his ex-lover in a fit of jealous rage.

Write it down in your notebook, folks. Ellie March and Kevin Walker are back!

BOUCHERCON 2017: HOME AT LAST!

Bouchercon, the world mystery convention that took place this year in Toronto, is now in the books. I'm home after a five-hour ride on the train on Sunday, a milk run that stopped at almost every town in eastern Ontario along the way including Belleville, Kingston, Brockville, and Smiths Falls. When the train finally reached my destination a few minutes before midnight, I swear that my entire body was a vessel of pain. Oh well, that's what I get for travelling economy.

This was my first time at a Bouchercon, and I thought it was a terrific experience. Thanks go out to Helen Nelson and Janet Costello, co-chairs, who organized a great convention.

Thanks as well to the remarkable Alison Bruce, executive director of the Crime Writers of Canada, who worked incredibly hard to make this a successful event for the CWC and its individual author members such as myself. I just don't know where she gets the energy. Also, my thanks to Cathy Ace, CWC chair, for putting us in the spotlight so effectively.

If you've been following my blog during the convention, you'll know what I mean when I say that it was a great opportunity for me to sit down with fellow crime fiction authors and chew the fat. (If you haven't been following, shame on you. Go back and read them and don't be such an uncaring churl!)

I should definitely mention CWC colleagues from Ottawa, including Barbara Fradkin, Brenda Chapman, Linda Wiken/Erica Chase, Mary Jane Maffini/Victoria Abbott (ah-choo), Mike Martin, and Robin (R.J.) Harlick. It was a pleasure to see you all again and catch up on stuff. And don't worry, Mary Jane, I didn't catch your cold.

Best of all, it was an incredible opportunity to meet readers and fans of crime fiction in its various forms. To the folks from Wisconsin, Nevada, California, and Scotland, among other places, it was a pleasure to listen to you talk about your lives and passion for the mystery genre, and I appreciate your interest in hearing about my work. I wish you all safe travels home.

Finally, to my fellow Canadians who attended and supported this country's authors from Louise Penny all the way down to Michael J. McCann -- we do it best, don't we?

BOUCHERCON 2017 IS COMING!

This coming week I'll be attending Bouchercon 2017 at the Sheraton Centre hotel on Queen St. in Toronto. This is the annual world mystery convention that brings together crime fiction authors, readers, publishers and booksellers for four days.

Attendees this year include Colin Cotterill, Rick Mofina, Louise Penny, Linwood Barclay and Joseph Finder, among many others.

This is the first time I'll be attending Bouchercon, so I'm very excited to see what it's all about. And I'll be pretty busy.

On Thursday, Oct. 12, the first official morning of the convention, I'll be delivering a 20-on-20 session in the VIP Room from 11:40 am to noon. I'll use my 20 minutes to talk about my work and to read a short (!) excerpt from SORROW LAKE. Will anyone show up? We'll find out!!!

I'll also be at the Crime Writers of Canada table set up outside the Book Room on Friday morning at 10:30 and Saturday morning at 8:30 (yawn!).  Then I'll move to the CWC table in the refreshment area at 10:30 am on Saturday and again at 1:30 pm.

If you're attending the convention, please stop by and say hello. If you're not attending, watch this space because I'll be posting updates every evening once I arrive in Toronto on Wednesday.

Here's hoping it'll be a great event!

Rural Policing in Ontario

Photo (c) Michael J. McCann

How does a large-scale police bureaucracy deliver effective service in a thinly-populated rural area?

BURN COUNTRY, the second March and Walker crime novel, continues to follow detectives of the Ontario Provincial Police featured in SORROW LAKE as they investigate homicides occurring in rural/small town settings.

Ontario is the most populated province in Canada, and it includes this nation's largest city, Toronto, and fourth largest city, Ottawa--our nation's capital.  This province is also the fourth largest in terms of area in square kilometres. While the larger municipalities in Ontario have their own police service, of course, the OPP's jurisdiction outside these metropolitan areas covers over one million square kilometres and well over two million people. As a result, the OPP is one of the largest police services in North America, with more than 6,200 uniformed officers.

As Kevin Walker reflects as he rushes out to the crime scene at the beginning of BURN COUNTRY,  the OPP Leeds County Crime Unit is responsible for investigating criminal offenses in "a rural jurisdiction covering 2,100 square kilometres with only 35,000 inhabitants scattered along county roads and back lanes that hooked and bent around countless lakes, swamps, and rivers. "

One of the questions explored in this series, then, is how such a large police bureaucracy with such an extensive mandate can still deliver effective service to a thinly-populated rural area like Leeds County.

Detective Inspector Ellie March, born and raised in Toronto, is a resource assigned out of OPP General Headquarters to lead the investigation of major cases in East Region, including homicides. Detective Constable Kevin Walker, on the other hand, was born and raised in Leeds County and comes to the crime unit from a defunct local village police service. Together, they represent the meeting point between a large, bureaucratic force and its individual boots-on-the-ground.

Readers who enjoyed Henning Mankell's portrayal of rural policing in Sweden in Faceless Killers, for example, his first Kurt Wallander novel, will want to see how it's done in Canada. BURN COUNTRY will be available for review in two weeks.

Turning the Raccoon Loose on Facebook

Call me a reluctant independent, if you will.

Just like anyone else, I'd love to be working under contract with a traditional publisher, but since that's not currently in the cards it's important, for the sake of morale and courage in the face of the manuscript in progress, to embrace my independence.

Yea, to celebrate it, even.

I have fun with the @PlaidRaccoon Twitter account. For example,

The Plaid Raccoon urges peace talks in war between Toronto City Hall and Raccoon Nation: http://t.co/GiIqB1ZRUs ;)

— Plaid Raccoon Press (@PlaidRaccoon) April 9, 2015

The Raccoon Twitter persona has sort of taken on a life of its own. I have fun tweaking the beak of the Random Penguin while promoting our publications and otherwise fishing for notable trout in the ever-flowing Twitter stream.

So why not, in the spirit of embracing independence, spread the fun to Facebook? This way, the rascally raccoon isn't limited to 140 characters. Hmmm, on second thought......

Check out the Plaid Raccoon Press on Facebook, and if you're so inclined, LIKE us! You may be sorry you did, but oh well. What's life without risks? Just tap your paw on this link: https://www.facebook.com/plaidraccoon