Kirjahaku

The hardest part is not knowing...Ottawa is baking under a July heatwave when the Homicide and Major Crimes Unit is called to help track down missing three-year-old Charlie McGowan. This is the second missing person case in nine months - a university exchange student never made it back to her Carleton University residence from a downtown party in November.At first, the two disappearances appear unrelated, but as true crime podcaster Ella Tate and Detective Liam Hunter dig deeper into both files, unsettling relationships begin to emerge. Evidence, however, remains frustratingly out of reach as the clock keeps ticking and concern for both missing victims takes on a heightened urgency.And then Liam Hunter gets a call that a body's been found on the Ottawa River Parkway ...

Small Towns can be MurderEleven-year-old Matt Clark is staying in the outlying village of Ashton for the summer while his parents work out their separation. He's been told to keep his head down and to stay off social media. Labour Day has come and gone, and Matt believes he'll be home soon, completely unaware that someone has been posting his photo and location on one of the sites, and trouble is on its way.Detective Liam Hunter gets the call - a double murder and a missing boy. While he spearheads the investigation, true crime podcaster Ella Tate undertakes her own search for the killer with mixed results. Meanwhile Homicide and Major Crimes is undergoing a major upheaval and the top position is up for grabs as Hunter's partner struggles to keep her job.The rainiest September in recent history proves a fitting backdrop for this haunting story of lies, betrayal, and deadly repercussions.Reviews: "If you're looking for a mystery with intrigue, heart, a finely drawn setting and relatable characters finding their way through tragic circumstances, Fatal Harvest is for you. Brenda Chapman knows how to tell a story and is, quite frankly, one of the most readable Canadian mystery writers of our time." - Anthony Bidulka, author of Going to Beautiful, Crime Writers of Canada 2023 Best Crime Novel"This was hugely readable and compelling. And there are enough dangling threads regarding the principal characters to make Book 4 a must " - Susan Rothery, Editor

A coming-of-age story set against the backdrop of "peace, love, rock and roll," and the Vietnam War. It’s the summer of 1971, and fifteen-year-old Darlene travels with her mother to cottage country. This year her wild cousin, Elizabeth, is staying with them in the hopes that time away from Toronto will straighten her out – but Elizabeth has other plans. It’s her summer mission to torment Darlene by manipulating her friends and seducing every eligible male in her path. Meanwhile, Darlene is captivated by the mysterious strangers who rent the cottage down the road, particularly free-spirited Candy, who tells stories of traipsing across the United States with rock stars. Darlene is also friends with a reclusive journalist who will stop at nothing to pen the ultimate anti-war story. She, too, secretly dreams of becoming a writer, but knows that her father will never allow it. When the connections between the young strangers and the war start to become clear, Darlene is presented with more choices than she would like.

A missing child. A dead mother. Kala Stonechild is about to discover what one betrayal can lead to.When Adele Delaney and her daughter Violet go missing, Jacques Rouleau is called upon to investigate. However, struggling with the impending death of his ill ex-wife, he sends Kala Stonechild and Paul Gundersund instead. On the second day of the investigation, Adele’s body turns up, dumped on the shoulder of the highway with no sign of her daughter. Her husband, Ivo, denies any involvement with either his wife’s death or their child’s disappearance, but not everyone is convinced. As the investigation unfolds, Stonechild learns that Adele was once entangled with a Montreal biker gang and heads to Quebec to investigate further. As Stonechild and Gundersund juggle personal troubles and a complicated, dangerous case, they find themselves piecing together a chain of disasters leading back to a single betrayal.

Still waters run deep. English teacher, mother, wife, and convicted child predator Jane Thompson has made parole and she has a plan. She begins her life in the shadows while she bides her time. One month later, the bludgeoned body of the student she was found guilty of corrupting four years earlier is found on the shores of Lake Ontario. Officers Stonechild and Gundersund head up the investigation and Jane Thompson quickly becomes the prime suspect. But knowing guilt and proving it are two entirely different things. Wading through deeply buried secrets to the truth will take Stonechild and the team on a twisted journey into the heart of evil. The question is: who will come out the other side?

Two murders, fourteen years apart, both shrouded in secrets.David McKenna lies dying in a Kingston hospital, his children gathered from across the country to say a final goodbye. But the family reunion opens old wounds. David’s only daughter, Lauren, never recovered from the unsolved murder of her high school best friend fourteen years earlier — or the suspicion that her brother, Tristan, was behind it.Before David breathes his last, Tristan’s pregnant wife disappears and the Major Crimes Unit is called in to help find her. With Kala Stonechild struggling to reconnect with her foster niece and Zach Woodhouse making trouble for Staff Sergeant Jacques Rouleau, tensions are running high on the team, but they must put their personal problems aside when a woman’s strangled body is found frozen on the Rideau Trail.With a winter storm sweeping the shores of Lake Ontario, the team uncovers unspeakable betrayals that give more than one suspect a reason to kill …

Keeping secrets is a very bad idea. Former teenage runaway and new single mother Nadia Armstrong moves to Kingston to turn her life around. But six months after she rents a low-end apartment, her body is found at an isolated construction site. Major Crimes begins piecing together her last days, uncertain if it is a case of suicide or murder. To make matters more difficult, a member of the team is leaking information, putting Staff Sergeant Rouleau in a precarious position. Meanwhile, Officer Kala Stonechild’s niece, Dawn, is secretly corresponding with her father, who’s out on early parole and turns up in town uninvited.Dawn’s friend Vanessa is also keeping a dangerous secret — her relationship with an older man named Leo, who preys on young girls. And it’s not long before he has Dawn in his sights.

Secrets abound at a northern Ontario lodge when a teenage employee is murdered. It’s late summer and a restless Officer Kala Stonechild has taken her foster niece, Dawn, on a canoe trip at Pine Hollow Lodge in the wilderness north of Sault Ste. Marie. But the getaway turns deadly when a teenage girl goes missing on her way home from an evening shift at the lodge’s restaurant. After the girl’s body is found between the lodge and the nearby town of Searchmont, Stonechild reluctantly agrees to help with the investigation. She’s teamed with Clark Harrison, an officer she worked with during her last posting in northwestern Ontario. As the investigation heats up, Stonechild’s past threatens the close bonds she’s forged back home. Will she return to her life in Kingston, or will the rekindling of an old relationship lure her away for good?

When murder stalks a family over Christmas, Detective Kala Stonechild trusts her intuition to get results.“Sneaks up on you with its grit and promise.” — National Post It’s a week before Christmas when wealthy businessman Tom Underwood disappears into thin air — with more than enough people wanting him dead. Officer Kala Stonechild, who has left her Northern Ontario detachment to join a specialized Ottawa crime unit, is tasked with returning Underwood home in time for the holidays. Stonechild is a lone wolf who is used to surviving by her wits. Her new boss, Detective Jacques Rouleau, has his hands full controlling her, his team, and an investigation that keeps threatening to go off track. Old betrayals and complicated family relationships brutally collide when love turns to hate and murder stalks a family.Finalist for the Crime Writers of Canada Award for Best Novel

Feeling somehow to blame for her father's absence, thirteen-year-old Jennifer Bannon struggles to hang on to her dream that he will return and they can be a family again - a dream that doesnt include her mother's new boyfriend, nights of looking after her little sister or a ninth grade year that is rapidly going down the toilet. Finally after two years of waiting Jennifer learns that her father is back in town, and suddenly the dream seems within reach. However, hope quickly turns to horror when Jennifer witnesses an event that threatens to tear apart her family and perhaps destroy the life of someone she loves. Will Jennifer be able to unravel the mystery in time, or will keeping a secret turn deadly?

Fourteen-year-old Jennifer Bannon cannot face another boring summer in Springhills. She convinces her mother to let her spend July at her grandmother's cottage in Hawk's Creek. She does not reveal that her plan is to live with her grandmother forever in order to avoid the problems back home. But Hawk's Creek holds dark secrets, and Jennifer is soon drawn into the troubled world of Audrey Musquash, a Native girl accused of stealing and being out of control. In this tale of suspense and haunting friendship, Jennifer must face truths that will change her perspective on life forever.

Fifteen-year-old Jennifer Bannon agrees to spend her summer as a camp counsellor at White Pine Camp with her best friend Ambie and her younger sister Leslie. But Jennifers summer in the isolated wilderness on Georgian Bay turns into a roller coaster ride of suspense and danger. Not all is as it appears, and Jennifer is quickly entangled in camp mysteries and the deep secrets of girls assigned to her cabin. There are mysterious after-lights-out activities and strange people who catch Jennifers eye, including a particular male counsellor. When Jennifer discovers somebody lurking in the woods past curfew, she knows that her first responsibility is to the girls in her charge, but she is nevertheless determined to find out what lies beneath the surface. What she discovers in the woods leads her to believe that someone is smuggling drugs and using the camp as a cover-up. As the summer heats up, suspense reaches a boiling point, and Jennifer must race to solve the mysteries of White Pine before tragedy rocks the camp.

In the fourth and final instalment in the Jennifer Bannon mystery series, Jennifer begins Grade Eleven at Springhills High, where her life is far from settled. Her mother has moved to L.A. with her new husband, Jennifers boyfriend moves to McGill to study pre-med and Jennifer fears their relationship will not survive the separation. She's worried about her best friend Ambie who has been secretly e-mailing the biological father she has never met. This story deals with themes of belonging, friendship and loss. While Jennifer struggles to find her place in a family separated by divorce and with friendships marked by change, she must learn how to rely on herself.

Maja Cleary has turned her back on her family and her hometown of Duved Cove, Minnesota, after her mother's suicide. Now in her early forties and a successful plastic surgeon in Ottawa, she ignores the dreams that disturb her days and the growing dissatisfaction with her marriage and unfulfilled life. She is not brave enough to make changes until a desperate phone call one cold February evening reveals that her father has been murdered in his backyard. Her brother Jonas arrest for her father's murder forces her from her safe world in Ottawa. Even as she works to prove her brother innocent, Maja discovers that others had equally good reason to want him dead. The frigid, stormy Minnesota landscape sets the mood as Maja battles against time, the local police, and the relentless snow. All the while, the murderer prepares to kill again.

Two separate crimes, two tragic outcomes. Jacques Rouleau has moved to Kingston to look after his father and take up the position of head of the town’s Criminal Investigations Division. One hot week in late September, university student Leah Sampson is murdered in her apartment. In another corner of the city, Della Munroe is raped by her husband. At first the crimes appear unrelated, but as Sergeant Rouleau and his new team of officers dig into the women’s pasts, they discover unsettling coincidences. When Kala Stonechild, one of Rouleau’s former officers from Ottawa, suddenly appears in Kingston, Rouleau enlists her to help. Stonechild isn’t sure if she wants to stay in Kingston, but agrees to help Rouleau in the short term. While she struggles with trying to decide if she can make a life in this new town, a ghost from her past starts to haunt her. As the detectives delve deeper into the cases, it seems more questions pop up than answers. Who murdered Leah Sampson? And why does Della Monroe’s name keep showing up in the murder investigation? Both women were hiding secrets that have unleashed a string of violence. Stonechild and Rouleau race to discover the truth before the violence rips more families apart.