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Canadian crime fiction

This page lists books about Canadian crime fiction and crime fiction writers.

 

Books about Canadian crime fiction

Maddened By Mystery: A Casebook of Canadian Detective Fiction

Editor: Michael Richardson

Lester & OrpenDennys

1982

This collection of Canadian detective stories includes bibliographic notes and an Appendix "Who's Who in Canadian Mystery Fiction" - an annotated listing of detectives, police, and criminals created by Canadian writers.

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Heroes And Humanities : Detective Fiction And Culture

Ray B. Browne

Bowling Green State University Popular Press

1986

"The present study of American, Australian, and Canadian detective fiction concerns literature which speaks in the ways of heroes and humanities about the human condition. All authors studied here, to one degree or another, demonstrate their concern with human society, some more strongly than others, but all with their eyes on the human situation and human existence. At times these studies lean toward the tragic in their outlook and development. In all instances they center on the humanistic."
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Crime in a Cold Climate: An Anthology of Classic Canadian Crime

Editor: David Skene Melvin

Simon & Pierre

1994

The introduction to this anthology provides a brief summary of crime writing in Canada.

"In the beginning of the 20th century, sleuths created by Canadian authors had as many fans as did Holmes himself. This anthology includes William Fraser, Pauline Johnson and Robert Service just to mention a few."
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Investigating Women: Female Detectives by Canadian Writers: An Eclectic Sampler

Editor: David Skene Melvin

Dundurn

1996

A collection of short fiction by Canadian authors featuring female detectives.

"As well as the fifteen investigating women in the book, Skene-Melvin’s introduction describes hundreds of female sleuths and their creators in an in-depth analysis of women detective fiction by Canadians."
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Canadian Crime Fiction

David Skene Melvin

Battered Silicon Dispatch Box

1996

" This is the first comprehensive bibliography of Canadian crime writing ever compiled. It covers virtually every book published between 1817-1996, and includes a biographical dictionary of Canadian crime writers. Canadian Crime Fiction covers both English- and French-language crime fiction, which is defined as adventure, crime, detective, espionage, mystery, suspense, and thrillers, as well as tales of intrigue, violence and investigation, and covers both adult and juvenile novels and plays. This bibliography is arranged alphabetically by author, and contains two major appendices dealing respectively with crime fiction by non-Canadians set in Canada, and crime fiction with Canadian connections."
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Detecting Canada: Essays on Canadian Crime Fiction, Television and Film

Editor: Jeannette Sloniowski & Marilyn Rose

Wilfrid Laurier University Press

2014

"The first serious book-length study of crime writing in Canada, Detecting Canada contains thirteen essays on many of Canada's most popular crime writers, including Peter Robinson, Giles Blunt, Gail Bowen, Thomas King, Michael Slade, Margaret Atwood, and Anthony Bidulka. Genres examined range from the well-loved police procedural and the amateur sleuth to those less well known, such as anti-detection and contemporary noir novels. The book looks critically at the esteemed sixties' television show Wojeck, as well as the more recent series Da Vinci's Inquest,Da Vinci's City Hall,and Intelligence, and the controversial Durham County, a critically acclaimed but violent television series that ran successfully in both Canada and the United States. The essays in Detecting Canada look at texts from a variety of perspectives, including postcolonial studies, gender and queer studies, feminist studies, Indigenous studies, and critical race and class studies."
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Canada and Sherlock Holmes

Editor: Peter Calamai and Mark Alberstat

The BSI International Series

Baker Street Irregulars

2016

"Canada and Sherlock Holmes contains a selection of the best Holmesian writing from Canada, many produced by members of The Bootmakers of Toronto, Canada's national Sherlockian society. Although two other book-length compilations of the Bootmakers' writings have appeared in the past, the pieces in this collection have not been previously anthologized. Included in this volume are essays dealing with Canonical persons, places and things related to Canada, the travels there by Arthur Conan Doyle and his family, and the treasure trove of Doylean and Sherlockian items at the Toronto Metropolitan Library. Another article, "Birth and Scandal – Ms. Holmes of Baker Street," deals with Alan Bradley's notorious notion of Holmes as a woman, which has intrigued, outraged and challenged scholars for decades. Also, sprinkled throughout the book is a selection poetry and Canonical lyrics."
The contents are:
  • Through the Magic Door (Mark Alberstat and Peter Calamai)
  • A Mari Usque ad Mare with Holmes (and Conan Doyle) (Peter Calamai)
  • We Always Mention Our Sherlock (David Sanders)
  • A Closer Look at the Four Pillars of the Collection (Hartley Nathan)
  • Hidden Ephemera Treasures in Toronto (Barbara Rusch)
  • What's Canadian in the Canadian Collection (Peggy Perdue)
  • The Last Card File (Donald Redmond)
  • It Is Good to Have Friends (Doug Wrigglesworth)
  • The Darkness that Surrounds the Angels (Christopher Roden)
  • Notes from a Man of Letters (Cameron Hollyer)
  • Welcome to Canada, Mr, Sherlock Holmes: Arthur Conan Doyle in Canada (Christopher Redmond)
  • Photos from Doyle's own album taken in Canada and promotional reprint of Conan Doyle's poem "The Athabaska Trail.")
  • A Very Canadian Murder Mystery (Jamie Portman)
  • Birth and Scandal: Ms. Holmes of Baker Street (Alan Bradley)
  • The Sleazy Truth (Paul Gouett)
  • "I Could Concoct a Better Plot," and More (L.B. Greenwood)
  • Cardinal Tosca — It Was a Dark and Stormy Night (Jamie Portman)
  • The Adler Commission on Porn in the Canon (True Davidson)
  • In Bed With Sherlock Holmes (Jim Ballinger)
  • A Glass of Wine with Sherlock (Tony Aspler)
  • If We Have to Be Whimsical (S. Tupper Bigelow)
  • Professor Moriarty: the Criminal Crammer (Peter Calamai)
  • A Remarkable Worm Said to be Unknown to Science (Frederick Aldrich)
  • The Lure Of the Chase (Christopher Redmond)
  • ACD Sonnet XXII: Charles Augustus Milverton (Len Haffenden)
  • Quick Watson, the Needle (J. Thomas Dalby)
  • The Two Worlds of Holmes and Watson (Graeme Decarie)
  • His Last Bow (Karen Gold)
  • The Wicked Colonel's Canadian Connection (Mark Alberstat)
  • A Case of Fine China (Ted Gurr)
  • The Course Prescribed for Surgeons: Netley Observed (Michael Higgs
  • Laura Lyons: Typist or Temptress? (Janice McNabb)
  • Bad, Bad Silas Brown (Karen Campbell)
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Last updated May 2018