2014 Arthur Ellis Award — Shortlisted

Following the money trail gets Tate and Brown into a lot of trouble.

Detectives Ray Tate and Djuna Brown are back from a vacation in Paris – fraudulently funded by a stolen State Police credit card. While waiting to find out if they’re going to be fired or jailed, the couple is assigned to the Green Squad, a dead-end job shuffling paper and counting contraband money. But while interrogating a money smuggler, Tate and Brown uncover a massive currency stash they hope will keep them out of jail. Their target is drug trafficker Laszlo "Marko" Markowitz, who has millions in cocaine profits to be laundered and shipped into Canada.

As Tate and Brown try to penetrate the Markowitz organization, they uncover an underworld choking on its own profits and find a homicidal madman who has created the perfect blend of criminality and anarchy.

Lee Lamothe is the author of several non-fiction books, including the bestsellers The Sixth Family: The Collapse of the New York Mafia and Bloodlines: The Rise and Fall of Mafia's Royal Family. His previous crime novel was The Last Thief. A journalist known for his investigations into the seamy underworld of organized crime, he travels widely in Asia and Europe from his base in Toronto.

Lee Lamothe's profile page

• Short-listed, Arthur Ellis Award

Lamothe knows cops and crooks. When the former Toronto crime reporter isn't tracking Canada's underworld . . . he's penning some of the grittiest (and atypical) crime tales around.

Winnipeg Free Press

Salty, smart and sexy Ray and Djuna are back from a Paris case and trying to pretend they're still there. But cocaine enters and mayhem follows as the pair face, again, the hard reality of law enforcement in their city. Great grit.

Globe and Mail