March Madness

The book event season is starting to hot up. And even though the latest Meg Harris mystery, A GREEN PLACE FOR DYING, won’t yet be available for these upcoming March events, I am certainly very happy to sign the 4 earlier books.

The first event is in Kemptville, Ontario on Sunday March 6. I am very honoured to be participating in the Kemptville Literary Follies held at Leslie Hall on Clothier St. West. At 3:00 pm I will be discussing and reading from the latest Meg Harris mystery. 

Then on Thursday, March 10, I will be the speaker at a Food For Thought luncheon, a program for seniors which is held bi-monthly at a local Ottawa restaurant.

Towards the end of March I fly to Santa Fe NM to attend the Left Coast Crime conference. I will be participating in 3 events. On Thursday Mar. 24, 2:00 pm – 2:45, Vicki Delany and Barbara Fradkin will be joining me to talk about the Crime Hot Spots of Canada using our respective series as the travel guide. On Friday, Mar. 25, I will be moderating the Living Diversity panel from 2:45 to 3:30 pm and on Saturday, Mar. 26, I will be participating in the panel, When Location Makes All the Difference, from 10:15 to 11:00 am. I am very much looking forward to my visit to this historic part of New Mexico and hope to see some of you there.

On Tuesday, Mar. 29 from 7:00 pm – 9:00, I will be signing my books at Poisoned Pen Bookstore in Scottsdale, AZ. I’ll be joined by fellow Canadian authors Vicki Delany and Wayne Arthurson.

My last event is next day, on Wednesday, Mar. 30, 2:00 pm at the Velma Teague Library in Glendale, AZ. Vicki will be sharing the podium with me. I'll be talking about my newest book, A GREEN PLACE FOR DYING. 

And I must not forget to mention that I am very excited about being a guest author at this year's Scene of the Crime Mystery Writing Festival being held Sat. August 13 on Wolf Island.  I will be joining Maureen Jennings, Elizabeth Duncan, C.B. Forrest and Howard Shrier. It promises to be a terrific day. Registration is limited, so register early and get a chance to not only hear us but to enjoy the festival's renowned church supper.

Publisher Change

An era in Canadian publishing ends with the buy-out of my publisher Napoleon & Co. by Dundurn Press.
Napoleon under the stewardship of Sylvia McConnell made a significant contribution in promoting Canadian stories by publishing distinctly Canadian mysteries and juvenile fiction. She and her editor Allister Thompson were wonderful to work with. Fortunately, we won't be saying good-bye. They are moving over to Dundurn to work as our editors. And rest assured that Meg Harris mysteries will continue with the spring publication of A Green Place for Dying by Dundurn.

The next Meg Harris mystery

Whew… I’ve done it. I’ve finally sent A Green Place for Dying off to my publisher.  I feel as if a tremendous weight has been lifted from my shoulders. But I tell you after living with Meg, her cast of supporting characters and her adventures for the past year and a half, I feel a bit lonely… and bored. Now what do I do? On to the next Meg Harris mystery…  or should I do something else….?

I am very excited about A Green Place for Dying. In this 5^th book in the Meg Harris mystery series, Meg returns to Three Deer Point after her trip to the Arctic, only to discover that the daughter of a friend has been missing from the Migiskan Reserve for over 2 months. Treating her as a runaway, the police refuse to do little more than a nominal search and continue to stall even when the girl’s friend turns up murdered.

As the mother struggles with her daughter’s disappearance, Meg vows to do what she can to find her and in the process uncovers an underside of life she would rather not know existed. And when the search takes an unexpected turn, Meg is forced to finally face her own demons and admit to the guilt she’s been hiding since a teenager.

In this latest Meg Harris mystery not only do I explore a major issue in Canada, that of missing aboriginal women (currently over 560) with little or no attention paid to their cases by police but I also delve into guilt and the detrimental impact it can have on shaping people’s lives.

Although A Green Place for Dying won’t be in bookstores until May, it is available for pre-order on online bookstores.