The Fat Man
The Fat Man

Author: Ken Harmon

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2012-12-11

Total Pages: 170

ISBN-13: 1101623454

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A satire of traditional Christmas stories and noir. A hardboiled elf is framed for murder in a North Pole world that plays reindeer games for keeps, and where favorite holiday characters live complex lives beyond December. Fired from his longtime job as captain of the Coal Patrol, two-foot-three inch 1,300-year-old elf Gumdrop Coal is angry. He's one of Santa's original elves, inspired by the fat man's vision to bring joy to children on that one special day each year. But somewhere along the way things went sour for Gumdrop. Maybe it was delivering one too many lumps of coal for the Naughty List. Maybe it's the conspiracy against Christmas that he's starting to sense down every chimney. Either way, North Pole disillusionment is nothing new: Some elves brood with a bottle of nog, trying to forget their own wish list. Some get better. Some get bitter. Gumdrop Coal wants revenge. Justice is the only thing he knows, and so he decides to give a serious wakeup call to parents who can't keep their vile offspring from landing on the Naughty List. But when one parent winds up dead, his eye shot out with a Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model BB gun, Gumdrop Coal must learn who framed him and why. Along the way he'll escape the life-sucking plants of the Mistletoe Forrest, battle the infamous Tannenbomb Giant, and survive a close encounter with twelve very angry drummers and their violent friends. The horrible truth lurking behind the gingerbread doors of Kringle Town could spell the end of Christmas-and of the fat man himself. Holly Jolly!

Noir in the North
Noir in the North

Author: Stacy Gillis

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2020-10-01

Total Pages: 414

ISBN-13: 1501342878

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What is often termed 'Nordic Noir' has dominated detective fiction, film and television internationally for over two decades. But what are the parameters of this genre, both historically and geographically? What is noirish and what is northern about Nordic noir? The foreword and coda in this volume, by two internationally-bestselling writers of crime fiction in the north, Yrsa Sigurðardóttir and Gunnar Staalesen, speak to the social contract undertaken by writers of noir, while the interview with the renowned crime writer Val McDermid adds nuance to our understanding of what it is to write noir in the North. Divided into four sections – Gender and Sexuality, Space and Place, Politics and Crime, and Genre and Genealogy – Noir in the North challenges the traditional critical histories of noir by investigating how it functions transnationally beyond the geographical borders of Scandinavia. The essays in this book deepen our critical understanding of noir more generally by demonstrating, for example, Nordic noir's connection to fin-de-siècle literatures and to mid-century interior design, and by investigating the function of the state in crime fiction.

On Foot to Canterbury
On Foot to Canterbury

Author: Ken Haigh

Publisher: University of Alberta

Published: 2021-09-16

Total Pages: 289

ISBN-13: 1772125458

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Setting off on foot from Winchester, Ken Haigh hikes across southern England, retracing one of the traditional routes that medieval pilgrims followed to the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. Walking in honour of his father, a staunch Anglican who passed away before they could begin their trip together, Haigh wonders: Is there a place in the modern secular world for pilgrimage? On his journey, he sorts through his own spiritual aimlessness while crossing paths with writers like Anthony Trollope, John Keats, Jane Austen, Jonathan Swift, Charles Dickens, and, of course, Geoffrey Chaucer. Part travelogue, part memoir, and part literary history, On Foot to Canterbury is engaging and delightful. "My father didn't need this walk, not the way I do. For him it would have been a fun way to spend some time with his son. He had, I begin to realize, a talent for living in the moment Perhaps a pilgrimage would help me find happiness. Perhaps I could walk my way into a better frame of mind, and somehow along the road to Canterbury I would find a new purpose for my life. It was worth a shot." Audio edition from PRH available from Audible, Kobo, Google, and Apple Books.

Bay of Blood
Bay of Blood

Author: A. M. Potter

Publisher:

Published: 2019-02-23

Total Pages: 350

ISBN-13: 9781644370971

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World-renowned painter Thom Tyler is murdered in Georgian Bay, Canada. The consensus is that Tyler had no enemies. Why would anyone murder him? Detective Sergeant Eva Naslund goes to work with a homicide team from OPP Central. They find no useful blood, print, or DNA evidence. They turn to financial forensics and criminal psychology. Tyler's paintings are worth millions, yet he's deeply in debt to banks and his art agent. Just as the investigation opens a new lead, courtesy of Tyler's friend, J.J. MacKenzie, MacKenzie is murdered. The team is back to ground zero--with two murders to solve.

A Siege of Bitterns
A Siege of Bitterns

Author: Steve Burrows

Publisher: Dundurn

Published: 2014-03-31

Total Pages: 353

ISBN-13: 145970844X

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Domenic Jejeune is a reluctant police hero but an enthusiastic birdwatcher. After he's promoted to a post in the heart of Britain's birding country, his first case involves the murder of an environmentalist. Torn between loyalties to his job and his hobby, Jejeune faces mistrust from his colleagues and self-doubt as he works to solve the case.

Ridgerunner
Ridgerunner

Author: Gil Adamson

Publisher: House of Anansi

Published: 2020-05-12

Total Pages: 358

ISBN-13: 1487006578

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Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize Winner Scotiabank Giller Prize Finalist Part literary Western and part historical mystery, Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize winner Ridgerunner is now available as a paperback. November 1917. William Moreland is in mid-flight. After nearly twenty years, the notorious thief, known as the Ridgerunner, has returned. Moving through the Rocky Mountains and across the border to Montana, the solitary drifter, impoverished in means and aged beyond his years, is also a widower and a father. And he is determined to steal enough money to secure his son’s future. Twelve-year-old Jack Boulton has been left in the care of Sister Beatrice, a formidable nun who keeps him in cloistered seclusion in her grand old house. Though he knows his father is coming for him, the boy longs to return to his family’s cabin, deep in the woods. When Jack finally breaks free, he takes with him something the nun is determined to get back — at any cost. Set against the backdrop of a distant war raging in Europe and a rapidly changing landscape in the West, Gil Adamson’s follow-up to her award-winning debut, The Outlander, is a vivid historical novel that draws from the epic tradition and a literary Western brimming with a cast of unforgettable characters touched with humour and loss, and steeped in the wild of the natural world.

Toronto Noir
Toronto Noir

Author: Janine Armin

Publisher: Akashic Books

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 278

ISBN-13: 193335450X

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A multicultural nexus, Toronto hosts Indian, Portuguese, African, Italian, and Chinese communities that provide fertile backdrops for Toronto Noir's corrosive expos s. Features brand-new stories by: RM Vaughan, Nathan Sellyn, Ibi Kaslik, Peter Robinson, Heather Birrell, Sean Dixon, Raywat Deonandad, Christine Murray, Gail Bowen, Emily Schultz, Andrew Pyper, Kim Moritsugu, Mark Sinnet, George Elliott Clarke, Pasha Malla, and Michael Redhill.

Twin Cities Noir: The Expanded Edition (Akashic Noir)
Twin Cities Noir: The Expanded Edition (Akashic Noir)

Author: Julie Schaper

Publisher: Akashic Books

Published: 2013-08-06

Total Pages: 289

ISBN-13: 1617751790

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"Local editors Schaper and Horwitz have assembled a noteworthy collection of noir-infused stories mixed with laughter…The Akashic noir short-story anthologies are avidly sought and make ideal samplers for regional mystery collecting." --Library Journal "The best pieces in the collection turn the clichés of the genre on their head . . . and despite the unseemly subject matter, the stories are often surprisingly funny." —City Pages (Minneapolis) Brand-new stories from John Jodzio, Tom Kaczynski, and Peter Schilling, Jr., in addition to the original volume's stories by David Housewright, Steve Thayer, Judith Guest, Mary Logue, Bruce Rubenstein, K.J. Erickson, William Kent Krueger, Ellen Hart, Brad Zellar, Mary Sharratt, Pete Hautman, Larry Millett, Quinton Skinner, Gary Bush, and Chris Everheart. "St. Paul was originally called Pig's Eye's Landing and was named after Pig's Eye Parrant--trapper, moonshiner, and proprietor of the most popular drinking establishment on the Mississippi. Traders, river rats, missionaries, soldiers, land speculators, fur trappers, and Indian agents congregated in his establishment and made their deals. When Minnesota became a territory in 1849, the town leaders, realizing that a place called Pig's Eye might not inspire civic confidence, changed the name to St. Paul, after the largest church in the city . . . Across the river, Minneapolis has its own sordid story. By the turn of the twentieth century it was considered one of the most crooked cities in the nation. Mayor Albert Alonzo Ames, with the assistance of the chief of police, his brother Fred, ran a city so corrupt that according to Lincoln Steffans its 'deliberateness, invention, and avarice has never been equaled.' As recently as the mid-'90s, Minneapolis was called 'Murderopolis' due to a rash of killings that occurred over a long hot summer . . . Every city has its share of crime, but what makes the Twin Cities unique may be that we have more than our share of good writers to chronicle it. They are homegrown and they know the territory--how the cities look from the inside, out . . ."

Belfast Noir
Belfast Noir

Author: Adrian McKinty

Publisher: Akashic Books

Published: 2014-11-04

Total Pages: 258

ISBN-13: 1617752916

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Lee Child, Eoin McNamee, and others explore the dark corners and alleyways of Belfast.

Scandinavian Noir
Scandinavian Noir

Author: Wendy Lesser

Publisher: Macmillan + ORM

Published: 2020-05-05

Total Pages: 197

ISBN-13: 0374718717

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"Even those unmoved by its subject will thrill to [Scandinavian Noir], a beautifully crafted inquiry into fiction, reality, crime and place . . . Perhaps when it comes to fiction and reality, what we need most are critics like Lesser, who can dissect the former with the tools of the latter." --Kate Tuttle, The New York Times Book Review An in-depth and personal exploration of Scandinavian crime fiction as a way into Scandinavian culture at large For nearly four decades, Wendy Lesser's primary source of information about three Scandinavian countries—Sweden, Norway, and Denmark—was mystery and crime novels, and the murders committed and solved in their pages. Having never visited the region, Lesser constructed a fictional Scandinavia of her own making, something between a map, a portrait, and a cultural history of a place that both exists and does not exist. Lesser’s Scandinavia is disproportionately populated with police officers, but also with the stuff of everyday life, the likes of which are relayed in great detail in the novels she read: a fully realized world complete with its own traditions, customs, and, of course, people. Over the course of many years, Lesser’s fictional Scandinavia grew more and more solidly visible to her, yet she never had a strong desire to visit the real countries that corresponded to the made-up ones. Until, she writes, “between one day and the next, that no longer seemed sufficient.” It was time to travel to Scandinavia. With vivid storytelling and an astonishing command of the literature, Wendy Lesser’s Scandinavian Noir: In Pursuit of a Mystery illuminates the vast, peculiar world of Scandinavian noir—first as it appears on the page, then as it grows in her mind, and finally, in the summer of 2018, as it exists in reality. Guided by sharp criticism, evocative travel writing, and a whimsical need to discover “the difference between existence and imagination, reality and dream,” Scandinavian Noir is a thrilling and inventive literary adventure from a masterful writer and critic.