“Smart, beautifully written, and really, really, funny satire featuring Arthur Beauchamp.” –– The Globe and Mail

Finalist for the Stephen Leacock Humour Award

In this zany political thriller, the leader of the despotic Asian nation of Bhashyistan declares war on Canada after a limo bearing its visiting delegation is blown sky-high in snowy Ottawa. The suspected assassin, Abzal Erzhan, a Bhashyistani revolutionary, disappears. Was he kidnapped, was he murdered, or did he get away scot-free? Enter famed trial lawyer Arthur Beauchamp, dragged from retirement on his idyllic Gulf Island farm. As he prepares to represent Erzhan, he must ponder a hard, ethical question: is the alleged terrorist guilty, or has he been set up to take the fall? Arthur soon finds himself tangled up with wily civil servants, scheming cabinet members, an abrasive Bhashyistani propagandist, and a government spy who stumbles about like a bull in a china shop. Meanwhile, the international pressure mounts as Canadian oil executives are taken hostage while three Canadian female tourists, fearing terrorism, hide out in Bhashyistani’s wintry wilds.

William Deverell's profile page

After careers as a journalist, criminal lawyer, and political activist, William Deverell turned to fiction and on his first effort won the $50,000 Seal First Novel Award. Since then, he has earned multiple prizes for his 20 published novels, including the Dashiell Hammett Prize for Literary Excellence in Crime Writing in North America, two Crime Writers of Canada Awards (formerly the Arthur Ellis Award) for Best Canadian Novel, and two runners-up for the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour. He holds two honorary Doctor of Letters degrees and lives in Pender Island, British Columbia.