books for adults
Once a prince of Lydia, Pelops was chopped into stewing meat and served to the gods for tea by his not-so-loving father. Remade by the gods and blessed at the same time with a gift for the culinary arts, Pelops flees his painful memories for the bright lamps of Athens where he hopes to make a new life for himself as a celebrity chef. But then a ruthless patron takes an unhealthy interest in his career, a famous courtesan is murdered at a dinner he prepares, and a couple of the less responsible gods offer to help him make a name for himself in Athens. And Pelops begins to realize that when the gods decide they owe you a favor, you’d better start saying your prayers.
Shortlisted for a Prix Aurora Award for Best Novel, the Michael Van Rooy Award for Genre Fiction, a High Plains Book Award (Culinary Division), The Bony Blithe Award (The Bloody Words Light Mystery Award), and the Mary Scorer Award for Best Book by a Manitoba Publisher
It's a great day for Greece when Perseus defeats the dreaded kraken. But victory begins to lose its lustre when the remains of the beast swamp the shores and fishing nets of the Aegean. After weeks of kraken cakes, kraken kabobs, kraken fritters, and kraken stew, everybody is getting decidedly sick of kraken — none more so than Chef Pelops.
In response to the "kraken crisis," the city of Athens announces the inaugural Bronze Chef competition. Normally, Pelops would jump at the chance tor prove himself the best celebrity chef in Greece. The trouble is, the competition's secret ingredient is sure to be kraken — and, having once offended Poseidon, Pelops can't cook kraken to save his life. To make matters worse, a loathsome rival has vowed to win the contest by fair means or foul. Now, Pelops must overcome the sea god's curse to show once and for all that he is the better chef — a task made all the more difficult by the insufferable antics of a most unexpected relative.
Shortlisted for the Margaret Laurence Award for Fiction, the Mary Scorer Award for Best Book by a Manitoba Publisher, and the Manuela Dias Book Design and Illustration Award
Most biologists believe the worst thing about field biology is watching everything else have sex except you. Robyn Devara is no exception. In the remote logging town of Marten Valley, Robyn knows she's not likely to win popularity contests, much less get any dates. After all, she's there to survey the old-growth forest for spotted owls, and, if she finds any of the endangered birds, it's going to mean big changes for the people of Marten Valley.
But hostile locals and militant environmentalists are the least of Robyn's problems after she discovers a body in the forest -- the body of a logging foreman, murdered by the well-aimed thrust of a tree spike.
Shortlisted for the Arthur Ellis Award for Best First Novel
The Holbrook garden gnomes have come down with a case of itchy feet. Paris, Vienna, even the Serengeti—the gnomes have been vacationing everywhere, returning to their owners with photographs of their travels. But gnomes aren't the only ones in need of a holiday.
Recovering from a broken leg, Robyn travels with her coworkers to Holbrook where she's to recuperate at a friend's house while her colleagues are to clean up an abandoned pesticide plant. But the old plant is slated to be converted into a toxic waste treatment facility, and with fragile wetlands and heron colonies mere kilometres away, many of the town's residents oppose the project. And while the local garden gnome-nappings may have started as a harmless prank, they quickly take a darker turn when a missing gnome shows up alongside the murdered body of an environmentalist, a man with family connections to the waste treatment facility.
Tropical birds in a suitcase. Expensive. Beautiful. Dead.
For field biologist Robyn Devara, this latest grim reminder of the illegal trade in endangered species includes an unexpected surprise—one of the birds is unknown to science.
Hot on the trail of the mysterious macaw, Robyn finds herself stationed at an isolated field camp in the Costa Rican jungle, where she must deal with a research team that includes a former wildlife trafficker, his angry nemesis, sundry wide-eyed graduate students, and a university professor who seems to think that grad students fall below paramecia on the academic tree of life. All this as well as shifty maintenance workers, a sexy project leader, and a shadowy group of armed poachers with itchy trigger fingers.
It's certainly an exciting change from routine paperwork. Exciting, that is, until communication with the outside world is cut off, deadly snakes start slithering into cabins, and members of the field team begin to die.
Shortlisted for the Mary Scorer Award for Best Book by a Manitoba Publisher
Ptarmageddon
Research scientist and amateur sleuth Robyn Devara is looking forward to a quiet vacation in the Yukon with her partner, Kelt Roberson—until he tells her about the murder of a reclusive ptarmigan researcher. Robyn can't ignore a mystery and her curiosity is further piqued when she discovers field notes have been left to her by the victim—a woman Robyn has never met.
The notes reveal the ptarmigan may be on the verge of ecological disaster caused by toxins leaking from an abandoned gold mine. Was the researcher killed because of a possible connection between the meek ground birds and the mine? Or is something else going on? There is a sizable flock of suspects and Robyn must solve the mystery before the health of the ptarmigan population is irrevocably compromised—and before the killer strikes again.