Set in and around post-war Toronto, I Am Not Guilty first appeared in a condensed form in the February 1954 Ladies’ Home Journal. That same year, it was published in full by Doubleday as M’Lord, I Am Not Guilty. This Ricochet Books edition marks the first new edition since 1967.

Helen Graham has been acquitted in the murder of her wealthy husband, Alberta oil baron Steven Graham, but the eyes of the public continue to view her with suspicion. Worried for her future, and that of her young son, she sets out to find the true killer. The trail leads to the apartment of another woman—and revelations about her dead husband’s secret life—then continues to a growing bedroom community in suburban Toronto. What the widow doesn’t realize is that she is not alone in her pursuit of the murderer or how ready that murderer is to kill again.

Frances Shelley Wees (1902-1982) was born Frances Shelley Johnson in Gresham, Oregon, immigrating to Canada as a teenager. Wees worked as a schoolteacher in Saskatoon, and later attended the University of Alberta. Her first published novel, The Maestro Murders (1931), was followed by more nearly twenty others, primarily mysteries and romances. Wees lived most of her adult life in Ontario, moving to the West Coast the year before she died.

Rosemary Aubert is the award-winning author of the Ellis Portal mystery series. Her work is based on her experience as a criminologist. She lives in Toronto.

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Patricia Abbott is the author of the mystery novels Concrete Angel (2015) and the Edgar Award-nominated Shot in Detroit (2016). Her collection I Bring Sorrow and Other Stories was published in 2018.

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