Tag: Detective Fiction

Kudos from Governor General’s Award Winner Steven Heighton

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“Bay of Blood is a vivid page-turner – one that promises more from both its writer, A.M. Potter, and its feisty protagonist, Sergeant Eva Naslund.” ~ Steven Heighton, Governor General’s Award Winner | Author of The Nightingale Won’t Let You Sleep, The Dead Are More Visible and more

Bay of Blood is available from your favourite book vendor. Ebook $3.95 USD; print book $14.95 USD. The print book is sold at select Chapters/Indigo and Coles locations, as well as at indie bookstores. If you prefer online vendors, Bay of Blood print books and Ebooks are available from:

Amazon.ca | Amazon.com | BarnesandNoble | Smashwords | KOBO | Black Opal Books | iTunes | Scribd | ChaptersIndigo

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2021 Author EVENTS

All events cancelled due to Covid-19.

2020 Author EVENTS

RESCHEDULED due to COVID-19. DATE/TIME TBA. (Old Time: Thursday May 14, 2020.) Author Talk & Signing at Koffee House Reads (affiliated with Meaford Public Library), MEAFORD, ON. Time & Venue TBA. Directions | Website

RESCHEDULED due to COVID-19. DATE/TIME TBA. (Old Time: Friday May 15, 2020. 3:00 PM.) Author Talk & Signing at Midland Public Library, MIDLAND, ON. 320 King Street. Directions | Website

RESCHEDULED due to COVID-19. DATE/TIME TBA. (Old Time: Thursday May 21, 2020.) Author Talk & Signing at Ansley Grove Public Library (Branch of Vaughan Public Library), WOODBRIDGE, ON. 350 Ansley Grove Rd. Directions | Website

RESCHEDULED due to COVID-19. DATE/TIME TBA. (Old Time: Sunday May 31, 2020. 2:00 PM.) Author Talk & Signing at Blue Mountains (L.E. Shore) Public Library, THORNBURY, ON. 173 Bruce St. S. Directions | Website

CANCELLED due to COVID-19. Thursday June 18, 2020. 3:00 PM. Author Talk & Signing at Probus Club of Collingwood, Collingwood, ON. Members Only. Website

RESCHEDULED to 2021 due to COVID-19. DATE/TIME TBA. (Old Time: Thursday July 2, 2020. 6:30 PM. Author Talk & Signing at Cottage Dockside Reads (affiliated with Parry Sound Public Library) at the Carling Township Recreation Center (15 minutes north of Parry Sound), CARLING, ON. Directions | Website

2020 EVENTS: All 2020 events moved to 2021 due to COVID-19

Author Talks & Signings at bookstores and libraries in the following locations: Orillia, Barrie, Collingwood, Owen Sound, Kimberley, Stayner, Angus, Caledon, and more.

2019 EVENTS

Thursday June 20, 2019. 7:00 PM. Author Talk & Signing at Ginger Press Bookshop, OWEN SOUND, ON. 848 2nd Avenue East. Directions | Website

Sunday July 7, 2019. 11:00 AM – 3:30 PM. Author Event & Signing at Chapters Indigo Bookstore, BARRIE, ON. 76 Barrie View Drive. Directions | Website

Thursday July 25, 2019. 2:00 PM. Author Talk & Signing at Port Elgin Public Library, Port Elgin, ON. 708 Goderich St. Directions | Website

Monday August 12, 2019. 7:30 PM. Author Talk & Signing at Wasaga Beach Public Library, WASAGA BEACH, ON. 120 Glenwood Drive. Directions | Website

Tuesday August 13, 2019. 2:00 PM. Author Talk & Signing at Tobermory Public Library, TOBERMORY, ON. 22 Bay Street. Directions | Website

Thursday August 15, 2019. 2:00 PM. Author Talk & Signing at Wiarton Public Library, WIARTON, ON. 578 Brown Street. Directions | Website

Monday August 19, 2019. 1:00 PM. Author Talk & Signing at Lion’s Head Public Library, LION’S HEAD, ON. 90 Main Street. Directions | Website

Saturday August 24, 2019. 11:00 AM – 3:30 PM. Author Event & Signing at Chapters Indigo Bookstore, HILLCREST MALL, NORTH YORK, ON. 9350 Yonge St. Unit Y010. Directions | Website

Saturday October 12, 2019. 11:00 AM – 4:30 PM. RETURN ENGAGEMENT. Author Event & Signing at Chapters Indigo Bookstore, HILLCREST MALL, NORTH YORK, ON. 9350 Yonge St. Unit Y010. Directions | Website

North Bay Noir – Giles Blunt

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Giles Blunt was born in Canada to English parents. As he tells it, “they had colorful accents and amusing habits and never allowed themselves to be influenced by Canadians. Consequently I lived in England at home and Canada at school.” Regardless of the schism – or maybe because of it – Blunt learned how to write. Very well. He is one of the few crime writers to be nominated for the Dublin IMPAC award.

Blunt’s Detective John Cardinal novels are set in Algonquin Bay, a thinly disguised version of North Bay, Ontario. OPP (Ontario Provincial Police) Detective John Cardinal is a down-to-earth yet complex man. Blunt doesn’t hide Cardinal’s faults. The detective is not a particularly social animal (like many a detective; to wit, Connelly’s Bosch and Rankin’s Rebus). Although Cardinal bears psychic scars, he is humane, humble, and likable.    

The Cardinal plotlines demonstrate that crime novels can be personal, with “literary” character development. They don’t need to be all crime all of the time. If you have interesting detectives like Cardinal and his partner, Lise Delorme, you can deliver whodunits with depth. Of course, it helps if the criminals aren’t one-dimensional. Blunt doesn’t fall into that trap. He gives us nuanced perps. As Cardinal hunts them down, the reader walks both sides of the thin blue line.

PS: Blunt’s Cardinal novels have been turned into a TV series. In my view, the books are more beguiling than the series. The TV offerings don’t deliver the depth of the novels, which echoes my general observation that movies/series tend to be inferior to the books they’re based on. Of course, every rule has its exceptions (Movies vs. Books).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giles_Blunt

A few excerpts from the Cardinal opus ….

Blunt delivers “literary” prose:

“The Planet Grief. An incalculable number of light years from the warmth of the sun. When the rain falls, it falls in droplets of grief, and when the light shines, it is in waves and particles of grief. From whatever direction the wind blows — south, east, north or west — it blows cinders of grief before it.”

Advice if you get lost in the Canadian woods:

“Panic will kill you faster than any wolf, faster than any bear.”

CBC Radio One ‘Ontario Morning’ Interview

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‘Ontario Morning‘ host Wei Chen (CBC Radio) invited me to talk about North Noir and Bay of Blood on Tuesday, April 30, 2019.

Interview Introduction: Author Andy Potter’s new book Bay of Blood recently hit shelves across the province and is the first in a series that follows fictional OPP Detective Eva Naslund.

June 2020 UPDATE: Apologies. The audio clip of the interview is no longer available from the CBC.

Bay of Blood Press Release

A.M. Potter2 Comments

‘OrilliaMatters’ Press Release: Novel based on bizarre death of Canadian icon set in Georgian Bay.

Bay of Blood, a new novel set in Georgian Bay, is based on the mysterious death of renowned Canadian painter Tom Thomson.

The book’s idea came to author Andy Potter when he was watching a documentary about Thomson’s life and mysterious death called West Wind: The Vision of Tom Thomson. This would make a great novel, Potter thought. Then he thought, No, it wouldn’t. You can’t fly too close to the Tom Thomson myth. It’s sacred. He’s a Canadian icon.

So, Potter wrote a mystery novel based on Thomson’s death. Thomson died on July 8, 1917. The famous painter murdered in Bay of Blood died on July 8, 2017. There are other similarities, but the painter in the novel is not Thomson, and he’s not the main character. The novel’s main character is OPP Detective Sergeant Eva Naslund.

Click here to see the full story.