Krimiblog-Archiv

Zum 23. Mal vergeben die Crime Writers of Canada (CWC) in diesem Jahr ihre Arthur Ellis Awards. Mit den Auszeichnungen in insgesamt sechs Kategorien werden Kriminalromane und -erzählungen aus Kanada gewürdigt. Vergeben werden die Preise am 8. Juni 2006 in Toronto und aktuell sind die Nominierungen veröffentlicht worden, die hier in der bebilderten Übersicht folgen.

Die Nominees nach Kategorien:

• Best Short Story
• Best Non-Fiction
• Best Juvenile
• Best Crime Writing in French
• Best First Novel
• Best Novel

– Best Short Story –

• Melanie Fogel: Plenty of Time. Erschienen in: When Boomers Go Bad (RendezVous Press)
• Day’s Lee: The Red Pagoda. Erschienen in: When Boomers Go Bad (RendezVous Press)
• Rick Mofina: Lightning Rider. Erschienen in: Murder in Vegas (Forge Books)
• James Powell: The Headless Horseman and the Horseless Carriage. Erschienen in: Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine (September/October 2005)
• Coleen Steele: The Knitting Circle. Erschienen in: Storyteller (Winter 2005)

– Best Non-Fiction –

Linda Diebel: Betrayed – The Assassination of Digna Ochoa
(Verlag: HarperCollins Canada)

Verlagstext:
Despite a note beside her body addressed to other „sons-of-bitch“ human rights lawyers, the Mexican government ruled Digna Ochoa’s violent death „probable suicide“ and slammed the case shut in July 2003. But Linda Diebel, a three-time recipient of the Amnesty International Media Award, will not let Ochoa’s story die. Here is her chilling account of a cold-blooded murder and a cover-up that reaches into the top echelons of the Mexican government.

Tracing Ochoa’s extraordinary rise from the streets to become a champion of Mexico’s most persecuted peoples, Diebel uncovers a byzantine plot surrounding Ochoa’s death. From the corridors of presidential power, to the Vatican, to jungles inhabited by Zapatistan rebels, Betrayed is a riveting exposé, a depiction of friendship and betrayal, a love story and a testament to the Mexican people’s continuing fight for truth and dignity.

Buch bestellen bei:

» amazon.de » libri.de » buch24.de

Rebecca Godfrey: Under the Bridge – The True Story of the Murder of Reena Virk
(Verlag: HarperCollins Canada)

Verlagstext:
It has been a long road to justice for Reena Virk, beaten and murdered at the hands of her teenage peers. Th murder of this girl is one of the most notorious and heartbreaking cases in Canadian history. Here, for the first time, acclaimed author Rebecca Godfrey reveals the stunning truth about a Canadian tragedy that captured international headlines.

Who were the seemingly ordinary suburban teenagers who found themselves under the bridge in Victoria, BC, on the night of November 14, 1997? Why would a girl who longed to be their friend be beaten and killed? And how did so many teenagers keep terrible secrets from parents, teachers and police for eight days? These are the questions all of us have been asking, and in

Under the Bridge the answers are revealed in a stunning narrative. Godfrey spent six years researching the case, conducting exclusive interviews with parents, classmates, police, prosecutors and, perhaps most importantly, several of the youths, including Warren Glowatski, one of the two teenagers convicted of murdering Virk. Godfrey also witnessed firsthand the many trials of Kelly Ellard, also found guilty of killing a girl who just wanted to fit in.

Buch bestellen bei:

» amazon.de » libri.de » buch24.de

Susanne Reber & Robert Renaud: Starlight Tour – The Last, Lonely Night of Neil Stonechild
(Verlag: Random House Canada)

Verlagstext:
A teen’s suspicious death, a shocking police cover-up and a mother’s search for the truth.

In 1990, on a November night that hit –28 degrees Celsius, seventeen-year-old Neil Stonechild disappeared only blocks from his mother’s home. His frozen body was found three days later, eight kilometres from where he was last seen in downtown Saskatoon. The police investigation was cursory — no one seemed to wonder about the abrasions on his wrists or the scrapes on his face, or the fact that he was missing a shoe. Neil was drunk and out walking, the police believed, and had died by misadventure. His mother, Stella Bignell, tried her best to push for answers, but no one in authority wanted to listen to a native woman whose sons had often been in trouble with the law.

But Stella did not give up, and neither did the only witness, sixteen-year-old Jason Roy, who had seen Neil, beaten and bleeding, in the back of a Saskatoon police cruiser the night he disappeared. Starlight Tour recounts their struggle for justice in the face of indifferent officials, destroyed police files and institutionalized racism. In the decade following Neil’s death, rumours persisted that police sometimes drove natives beyond the edge of town and abandoned them. But it was only in January 2000, when two more men were found frozen to death, that the truth about Neil Stonechild’s fate began to emerge. A third man, Darrell Night, survived his “starlight tour,” and lived to tell the tale. And soon one of the country’s most prominent aboriginal lawyers, Donald Worme, was on the case.

Zur Zeit nicht bei amazon.de gelistet.

Daniel Sanger: Hell’s Witness
(Verlag: Penguin Canada)

Verlagstext:
Dany Kane was a chameleon and a mass of contradictions: Hells Angels hit man and police informant, family man and patron of gay personal ads, steroid-crazed thug and charming joker. He was also the “super-source” for the RCMP and later the Sûreté du Québec in their efforts to end one of North America’s longest and bloodiest gang wars ever, the battle to control the illegal drug business in Quebec and beyond. Kane’s dangerous double life caused him much anxiety, but it resulted in the spectacular “Springtime 2001” busts in which police rounded up some 120 gang members and associates on murder and drug charges. The many casualties of the Quebec biker wars included a female prison guard and an eleven-year-old Montreal boy, killed in a car bombing. But by then Kane was dead, the victim of a highly questionable suicide mere weeks before he was to receive a huge payout and a new identity.

Zur Zeit nicht bei amazon.de gelistet.

– Best Juvenile –

Sheldon Goldfarb: Remember, Remember
(Verlag: UKA)

Verlagstext:
Fourteen-year-old Aleister Lister Smith is sailing through a peaceful existence at a respectable public school in Shropshire. Perhaps too peaceful, even a bit boring at times. The only adventures in his life are the ones he reads about in books like The Count of Monte Cristo.

But all that changes one day when the mysterious brother-in-law of his schoolmaster shows up. What are these troubles that the brother-in-law is undergoing, and why does he want Aleister to help him with them?

Before he knows what’s happening Aleister finds himself on the way to Manchester, ostensibly to work as a clerk in an insurance office, but really to try to find out the identity of a blackmailer.

Complicating his life once he gets there is a young girl named Kate who quotes Paradise Lost and seems alarmingly lively. Then there is Jack, his co-worker, who sneaks out during work to smoke. It all seems quite a different world from peaceful Shropshire.

And then on Guy Fawkes Night, there’s a murder.

Buch bestellen bei:

» amazon.de » libri.de » buch24.de

Vicki Grant: Quid Pro Quo
(Verlag: Orca Book Publishers)

Verlagstext:
Cyril MacIntyre may only be thirteen years old,
but he knows the law.

I hated law school, but if I hadn’t spent three years of my life there, I wouldn’t have known anything about fraud, blackmail or the principle of equity. In other words, I wouldn’t have known what I needed to know to save my mother’s life.

Quid Pro Quo is a high-stakes, fast-moving legal thriller about real people, and funny people at that. Cyril MacIntyre’s mother is a twenty-eight-year-old ex-street kid who drags her son to all her law school classes, then proceeds to get herself kidnapped. That aside, Cyril’s life isn’t too different from that of other thirteen-year-olds. He has all the usual adolescent issues to deal with: parent problems, self-esteem problems, skin, hair and girl problems. He just has legal problems too. And he’s got to solve them if he wants to save his mother’s life.

Buch bestellen bei:
» amazon.de » libri.de » buch24.de

Jacqueline Guest: Wild Ride
(Verlag: James Lorimer & Company)

Verlagstext:
January Fournier is back in the sequel to Lightning Rider. This time she has a faster bike and faster friends, including Liam, a computer wizard who has a talent for hacking. Jan and her new family have moved to Banff, Alberta and when Willow Whitecloud, an RCMP Summer Student, comes to live with them, things start to happen.

Is it coincidence that a rash of grizzly bear poaching begins soon after Willow arrives? And what’s with Willow’s strange religious beliefs? She smudges, believes in evil wittigos and is sure Jan has a spirit helper. When Jan compares Willow’s spiritual beliefs with her own mainstream religious background, conflicts arise that she can’t deal with alone.

An action packed read with fast motorcycles, computer hacking and evil spirits all clashing to make this book a truly Wild Ride!

Buch bestellen bei:
» amazon.de » libri.de » buch24.de

Norah McClintock: Not a Trace
(Verlag: Scholastic Canada)

Verlagstext:
When Chloe finds a body, everyone assumes that David Mitchell is the killer — he was the one who vowed to defend his people’s land by any means necessary. And two witnesses spotted Mitchell near the crime scene. So why isn’t Chloe convinced? The trouble is, there’s no evidence that points to anyone else. Not even a trace.

Zur Zeit nicht bei amazon.de gelistet.

Diane Tullson: Red Sea
(Verlag: Orca Book Publishers)

Verlagstext:
Fourteen-year-old Libby didn’t want to go on a year long sailing adventure with her mother and her stepfather, Duncan, and she isn’t about to let them forget it. Traveling through the Red Sea, Libby causes them to be late and make a dangerous crossing alone. When modern-day pirates attack, Duncan is killed and Libby’s mother is left seriously injured and unconscious. Libby is left alone on a crippled boat to find safety and help for her mother. Libby must call on all her strength and face some hard truths about herself if she is to survive and reach land. A thrilling tale of one girl’s struggle for survival against the elements and her inner demons, Red Sea is adventure writing at its best.

Buch bestellen bei:
» amazon.de » libri.de » buch24.de

– Best Crime Writing in French –

Benoit Bouthillette: La Trace de l’escargot
(Verlag: Les Editions JCL)

Verlagstext:
Benjamin Sioui, d’origine montagnaise, daltonien de son état, consommateur occasionnel de cocaïne, fan de Kurt Cobain et amoureux d’un médecin légiste à laquelle il trouve une ressemblance avec la star Laetitia Casta, enquête sur une série de meurtres.

Il a toutefois affaire à un tueur génial, minutieux, dément et sadique, qui s’inspire savamment des tableaux du peintre britannique Francis Bacon pour élaborer la mise en scène de ses crimes.

Au cÅ“ur d’un Montréal nocturne et marginal, on assiste alors à une lente plongée dans l’esprit de l’inspecteur, à une incursion dans l’univers tourmenté de ce héros romantique. Benjamin Sioui est un homme épris de justice et d’absolu, un homme capable d’amour, qui croit en l’amour et en un monde meilleur. Mais tous les jours son travail lui rappelle qu’il y a la laideur et la folie. Une folie si outrancière qu’il a parfois l’envie irrésistible de verser pour de bon dans le cynisme et la désillusion.

Pourtant, cette histoire, sous des dehors d’enquête policière, est d’abord et avant tout un grand roman d’amour; elle est celle d’un homme prêt aux actes les plus grands, les plus nobles et les plus risqués pour rester totalement fidèle à ses sentiments.

Zur Zeit nicht bei amazon.de gelistet.

Jacques Côté: La Rive noire
(Verlag: Alire)

Verlagstext:
Mai 1980…
Le lieutenant Duval et son équipe se voient confier une tâche difficile : trouver qui a empoisonné Florence, l’épouse bien connue de Charles Marquis, un riche entrepreneur qui vise la mairie de Québec. Or, ce n’est qu’à la suite de l’exhumation du corps et des analyses du chimiste-toxicologue – le décès remonte à octobre 1979 – que l’on a appris que ce n’est pas le cancer ou les traitements de chimiothérapie qui ont achevé – et fait terriblement souffrir ! – cette femme que tous considéraient comme une sainte.

Alors que l’enquête progresse, Duval voit la liste des suspects s’allonger. Bien sûr, l’important héritage s’avère un mobile incontournable ; le fait que Florence avait entrepris secrètement des démarches de divorce ne doit pas être négligé non plus. Mais quand Duval apprend que Charles avait « découvert » son homosexualité il y a quelques années et qu’il entretient toujours une relation mouvementée avec un jeune éphèbe, il comprend que son enquête va prendre une direction à laquelle il ne s’attendait vraiment pas!

Zur Zeit nicht bei amazon.de gelistet.

Gérald Galarneau: Motel Riviera
(Verlag: Les Editions JCL)

Verlagstext:
Un soir de pluie torrentielle et de grand brouillard, Pierre Vaugeois rentre d’un séjour à Québec pour affaires. Seul au volant, content d’être une journée en avance, il aperçoit soudain la Ford Tempo de sa femme qui passe devant lui sur la route 116. Par curiosité malsaine, il décide de la suivre.

Mais il n’arrive pas, à cause de la pluie abondante et la purée de pois, à bien identifier la conductrice. Est-ce bien la bonne voiture?

La Ford Tempo ne roule pas longtemps. Elle tourne dans le parking du motel Riviera. Un homme en descend et court jusqu’à la réception. Il en ressort, se rue sur une porte, l’ouvre et fait des signes pour qu’on le rejoigne.

Vaugeois est aux aguets. Au travers des essuie-glaces qui battent follement et cherchent à évacuer l’eau trop abondante, il scrute la nuit brumeuse. La femme descend de la Ford Tempo, attrape un parapluie.

Il n’y a plus aucun doute: ce parapluie est celui que Vaugeois a lui-même offert à sa femme pour son anniversaire de naissance.

Il est cocu. Lui, Pierre Vaugeois, cette armoire à glace de près de deux mètres qui impose le respect partout, est trompé. Brouillard, pluie, rage démente: cocktail puissant pour une nuit fatale…

Zur Zeit nicht bei amazon.de gelistet.

– Best First Novel –

Rob Harasymchuk: The Joining of Dingo Radish
(Verlag: Great Plains Publications)

Verlagstext:
An accomplished thief and a skilled con man, Dingo Radish is a good man who does bad things. The eldest of three children born to an alcoholic father and an emotionally unstable mother, Dingo and his family are social outcasts in the town of Bennington Falls, Saskatchewan. After the deaths of his parents, Dingo becomes responsible for his mentally handicapped brother and promiscuous sister. But going straight turns out to be harder than he’d hoped.

In a desperate attempt to provide for his family, Dingo pulls one last heist: he steals a semi-trailer loaded with a genetically modified herbicide and sells it to his crooked boss. But the herbicide manufacturer is out to kill more than weeds, and Dingo stumbles into a web of greed and genetic engineering that leads to the kidnapping of his mentally challenged brother. Set in the heart of rural Saskatchewan, The Joining of Dingo Radish is the story of one man willing to do whatever it takes to provide for those he loves.

Buch bestellen bei:
» amazon.de » libri.de » buch24.de

Mike Harrison: All Shook Up
(Verlag: ECW Press)

Verlagstext:
All Shook Up is a fast-paced, hard-edged, energetic page-turner featuring Eddie Dancer — Canada’s newest and toughest private eye who might have learned his craft at school with Robert B. Parker’s Spenser, Robert Crais‘ Elvis Cole, or Lawrence Sanders‘ Archy McNally.

Two years as a city cop have convinced Eddie he’s better off working for himself. When he’s hired to track down a tough, professional bank robber, Eddie has no idea he’s about to pry the lid off a very nasty cans of worms — worms who will stop at nothing to put him in the ground. When he runs up against a pair of disgraced ex-bikers, he uncovers a macabre connection between the ex-bikers and the „fate worse than death“ that has befallen many of the city’s hookers — a fate that leaves them, irreversibly, in a vegetative state.

Eddie wonders if he has bitten off more than he can chew, but with the help of his friend Danny „Many Guns,“ Eddie uncovers evidence of a major conspiracy stretching from the city’s back streets and tattoo parlours to the very top of the prison system food chain.

Will Danny save his friend and partner from the „fate worse than death,“ or will the bad guys finally get their revenge on the man who’s exposed them? All Shook Up is the first in the Eddie Dancer series — a fast read that mixes humour with a memorable plot, an impressive array of characters, and enough twists to keep pages turning to the very end.

Buch bestellen bei:
» amazon.de » libri.de » buch24.de

Illona Haus: Blue Mercy
(Verlag: Pocket Star Books/Simon & Schuster)

Verlagstext:
Illona Haus announces her arrival as a bold voice in suspense with a gritty, edge-of-your-seat thriller. One woman’s quest to bring a vicious killer to justice is about to lead her through the dark corners of obsession — and test her capacity for mercy.

It’s more than revenge.

Ravaged by guilt, Detective Kay Delaney is reeling from an attack that resulted in her partner’s death. Her only consolation is that serial killer Bernard Eales, who shot her partner, sits in Maryland’s State Penitentiary awaiting what’s expected to be a sure conviction. But when the prosecution’s star witness turns up dead — and the body bears the same gruesome marks found on Eales’s victims — Kay wonders whether the right man is about to stand trial.

It’s the fight of her life.

Partnered with her former lover, Danny Finnerty, Kay must confront the man who haunts her dreams — even if it means proving him innocent of three shocking crimes. As the body count rises, Kay embarks on a dark journey that will test her shattered courage, pit her against an unseen evil, and challenge her to unlock a killer’s chilling obsession…before it’s too late.

Buch bestellen bei:
» amazon.de » libri.de » buch24.de

Louise Penny: Still Life
(Verlag: McArthur & Company)

Verlagstext:
As the early morning mist clears on Thanksgiving Sunday, the homes of Three Pines come to life – all except one…

To locals, the village is a safe haven. So they are bewildered when a well-loved member of the community is found lying dead in the maple woods. Surely it was an accident – a hunter’s arrow gone astray. Who could want Jane Neal dead?

In a long and distinguished career with the Sûreté du Quebec, Chief Inspector Armand Gamache has learned to look for snakes in Eden. Gamache knows something dark is lurking behind the white picket fences, and if he watches closely enough, Three Pines will begin to give up its secrets…

Buch bestellen bei:
» amazon.de » libri.de » buch24.de

Ilona van Mil: Sugarmilk Falls
(Verlag: McClelland & Stewart)

Verlagstext:
Hidden among the glacial hills and lakes of the Canadian Shield lies Sugarmilk Falls, a close-knit community with the worst of secrets. Everyone, including the aging priest and the town’s sole policeman, who have their own reasons for concealing the facts, remembers a different version of what really happened there over twenty years ago.

But secrets cannot stay buried forever. As the thick snow of a winter’s night sets in, the inhabitants gather together, induced by a questioning stranger to talk openly for the first time about the sinister events of the past. Some think that it all began when Grand’mère Osweken, an Ojibwa shaman, lost the maple forests on a gamble during a game of craps. Others contend it goes further back, to the arrival of the schoolteacher Marina Grochowska, a newcomer with a tightly guarded past. Or perhaps it really started years before that when the woodsman Zack Guillem discovered a curious powdery coating over an area of foliage in the bush.

Beautifully crafted and darkly compelling, this is a remarkable debut that captures the spirit and repression of a blighted community as it slowly turns in on itself. Sugarmilk Falls has earned comparisons with David Guterson’s Snow Falling on Cedars, as it similarly takes readers deep inside a community riven by prejudice and by the secrets of the past.

Buch bestellen bei:
» amazon.de » libri.de » buch24.de

– Best Novel –

Rick Blechta: Cemetery of the Nameless
(Verlag: RendezVous Press)

Verlagstext:
Victoria Morgan, violin virtuoso extraordinaire, and her devoted piano accompanist are on yet another European tour currently stopping in Vienna.

While playing to a full house, Tory leaves the stage and disappears in the middle of this important concert, leaving behind a puzzled (and angry) audience. Why would a seasoned professional so intent on maintaining her well-established career do something so damaging? Especially after some very negative reviews from local press?

Tory’s decision to leave proves to be especially fatal to her career, since the rumours of her disappearance involve the accusation that Tory has committed the brutal murder of a high profile Viennese figure. While the press continues to hound everyone who knew Tory for answers, it appears she is running from them, the police and her long-suffering husband Oscar Lukesh, affectionately known as Rocky. Or is she?

The action is set around the appearance of a mysterious score for a recently discovered violin concerto of incredible worth. Is it truly by Beethoven as the owner claims, and will Tory be the first to debut this dream violin piece, or are all of these things just hollow promises and a way to bait a trap?

Now it looks like it’s up to Rocky to help save Tory from herself and figure out who is committing the growing number of murders – if it really isn’t his wife.

Buch bestellen bei:
» amazon.de » libri.de » buch24.de

Giles Blunt: Blackfly Season
(Verlag: Random House Canada)

Verlagstext:
It’s summer in Algonquin Bay, and the blackflies are driving people a little mad. John Cardinal and Lise Delorme have a different sort of mystery on their hands: a young woman has wandered bug-bitten out of the bush and can’t remember her name or where she comes from. The reason? She has been shot in the head with a small-calibre weapon and the bullet is lodged in her brain.

Then a body turns up in a cave in the woods, the corpse of one Wombat Guthrie, a biker/drug dealer whose head, hands and feet have been removed but whose tattoos are unmistakable. At first the two cases could not seem further apart. But subsequent clues, and another brutal murder, seem to connect both of them to the fortunes of a small, even amateurish, drug gang that has recently hit the big time under the leadership of an Ojibwa shaman named Red Bear.

With the help of a neuropsychologist, the mysterious young woman regains some of her memory. But try as he might, Cardinal just can’t tie all these threads together. He begins to suspect that the innocent young woman may not be so innocent after all, and that her recently returned “memories” may not be the whole truth. And Red Bear may not be what he seems, either. Is he really a native shaman or is he just another drug dealer with an appetite for savage murder?

Buch bestellen bei:
» amazon.de » libri.de » buch24.de

Alex Brett: Cold Dark Matter
(Verlag Castle Street Mystery/Dundurn)

Verlagstext:
A Canadian astronomer commits suicide on a desolate mountain peak in Hawaii, and Morgan O’Brien is sent to the observatory to find his missing data. But it seems she’s not the only one who needs those notebooks, and her competitor is willing to kill to get them. But why? To find the answer, Morgan travels from the peak of Mauna Kea deep into Ottawa’s past, where the darkness of the Cold War still obscures the truth.

Buch bestellen bei:
» amazon.de » libri.de » buch24.de

William Deverell: April Fool
(Verlag: McClelland & Stewart)

Verlagstext:
Arthur Beauchamp, the scholarly, self-doubting legend of the B.C. criminal bar (and one of Deverell’s most amiable — and crafty — protagonists), is enjoying his retirement as a hobbyist farmer on B.C.’s Garibaldi Island when he is dragged back to court to defend an old client. Nick “the Owl” Faloon, once one of the world’s top jewel thieves, has been accused of raping and murdering a psychologist. Beauchamp has scarcely registered how unlikely it is that the diminutive Faloon has hurt anyone when his own personal life takes an abrupt turn. His new wife, Margaret Blake, organic farmer and environmental activist, has taken up residence fifty feet above ground in a tree she is determined to save for the eagles and from the loggers. Beauchamp shuttles between Vancouver and the island, doing what he can to save the tree and get his wife back — and defend Faloon.

Part courtroom thriller, part classic whodunit, April Fool sees Deverell writing at the top of his form as he puts these characters through some entertaining and very surprising twists and turns.

Buch bestellen bei:
» amazon.de » libri.de » buch24.de

Peter Robinson: Strange Affair
(Verlag: McClelland & Stewart)

Verlagstext:
When Alan Banks receives a disturbing telephone call from his brother, Roy, he abandons the peaceful Yorkshire Dales for the bright lights of London to search him out. But Roy has vanished into thin air, and now Banks fears this could have been their final conversation. Meanwhile, DI Annie Cabbot is called to a murder scene on a quiet stretch of road just outside Eastvale. A young woman called Jennifer Clewes has been found dead in her car, and in the back pocket of her jeans, written on a slip of paper, police discover Banks’s name and address.

Living in his brother’s empty, luxurious South Kensington flat, Banks finds himself digging into the life of the brother he never really knew, or even liked. He begins to uncover some troubling surprises, leaving Annie to track down Jennifer Clewes’s friends and colleagues alone. It seems that both trails are leading towards frightening conclusions. And when the cases begin to intersect, the consequences for Banks and Annie become terrifying . . .

Strange Affair is Peter Robinson’s fifteenth Inspector Banks novel, and it amply demonstrates why he’s counted among the top crime fiction writers in the world.

Buch bestellen bei:
» amazon.de » libri.de » buch24.de