Winner of the 2004 ForeWord Book of the Year Award
Toronto in 1856 is industrializing with little time for scruple or sentiment. When Reform politician William Sheridan dies suddenly and his daughter Theresa vanishes, only one man persists in asking questions. A former suitor of Theresa’s, bank cashier Isaac Harris has never managed to forget her, despite her marriage to another man. Thrust into the role of amateur detective, he must now struggle with the demands of his job and the shortcomings of the fledgling city police. He also faces the hostility of Theresa’s powerful husband, a steamboat and railway magnate. Harris’s search takes a grisly turn when, in a valley outside of town, he finds human remains decked in traces of Theresa’s finery. If she is dead, who is responsible? And who cares to find out, apart from the man who wooed her too timidly and now would do anything to make up for it? Death in the Age of Steam whirls the reader through a richly realized Victorian landscape, from Niagara Falls to Montreal and north as far as the shores of Lake Superior. It’s a world at once near and exotic, a world of noise and smoke and churning pistons, but a world still very familiar to denizens of the 21st century.

Mel Bradshaw was born in Toronto and grew up there on the brow of the escarpment overlooking the former Lake Iroquois. He took his B.A. in English and philosophy at the gargoyle-laden (some say haunted) University College in the University of Toronto. He continued studying philosophy - mostly ethics and aesthetics - at the quaintly named New College, Oxford (founded 1379). Between degrees, he spent two years forgetting the Canadian winter in Southeast Asia, teaching English in northern Thailand and performing odd jobs in Jakarta, Indonesia. He has also travelled to Zambia, Iceland, Poland, and points between. A four-year sojourn in Saskatoon reminded him about winter and showed him how to dress for it. He has since returned to his native-city where he shares with Carol Jackson a 1920s house and shady garden in the former borough of East York. Author of the critically acclaimed Toronto-based historical mystery, Death in the Age of Steam, Bradhsaw has again chosen to revisit Toronto’s past, the 1920s to be exact, for his second novel Quarrel with the Foe. The historical content of his novels has stirred interest in several literary circles at which he has spoken. He has also been invited to partake in many prestigious literary events across the country, including the Globe and Mail’s Books and Brunch, Bloody Words, the U of T reading Series and the Word On the Street. Queen’s Quarterly, Impulse, Descant, and The Dalhousie Review are among the journals that have published Mel’s short stories, many of which are inspired by his wanderings. He has also written for The Canadian Forum about the Canadian army’s victory at Ortona during the Italian campaign of World War II. Mel's latest novel, Victim Impact, this time set in the present day, was published by RendezVous Crime in the fall of 2008.

Mel Bradshaw's profile page

• Winner, The ForeWord Book of the Year Award

Bradshaw had achieved a particular kind of literary feat. He has written a 19th-century novel, set in Toronto in 1856. This is not merely a detective story in period dress, but a carefully constructed and exquisitely sketched novel of manners.

Toronto Star

It's a wonderful read. It's an easy read. You can get right into the characters and the scenes.

Hametown Today on CHML AM 900 Hamilton

...Death in the Age of Steam...offers respide from an overwrought milieu.

Calgary Herald

This book, not to be devoured in one sitting, is meatier than many mysteries...with psychological depth and an acute sense of time and place, this book calls for slow savoring.

ForeWord Magazine

Mel Bradshaw may have set his mystery in a time when the word 'detective' was still a neologism, but the Canada he so lovingly re-creates is far from unrecognizable. From Toronto's Bay St. to Kingston's penitentiary and Montreal's Bonsecours market, from the latest fashions of the era to the political clashes that defined it, the world resurrected by Bradshaw is nothing short of awe-inspiring.

The Montreal Gazette

Mel Bradshaw has created a novel that is very hard to put down. While it is extremely linear in structure, it is peopled by interesting characters utterly unlike English or American characters of the same era. Bradshaw's world is completely Canadian, with an assumption that the reader knows at least a little Canadian history.

Edmonton Journal

This is a quest novel, the journeys and trials of a knight-errant in search of his lady fiar. It is written in an unhurried style, the sentences rolling over each other, like the majestice St. Lawrence River itself, along whose shores, and those of Lake Ontario, much of the action takes place.

I Love A Mystery

...exceptionally good first novel...Bradshaw keeps the reader firmly on the pavement with sights, sounds, smells and vivid descriptions of Victorian Canadian life.

The Globe and Mail

This is a delightful, romance, mystery, and detective story, full of history and brimming with intelligent and superbly-rendered characters.

First Novels