1983. Vancouver is on the precipice of transforming itself from a dirty little town to a blandly sophisticated big city. Convertibles cruise beneath runty palm trees, and the air is filled with the delicious tang of ocean breezes, cheeseburgers, and pot smoke.

In this fast and furious crime novel set in the midst of a long west coast summer, an Eastern European immigrant named Irina absconds with a shipment of drugs and $300,000 in dirty money, setting into motion a wild chain reaction involving bounty hunters, corrupt cops, low-brow scammers, and her bewildered, straight-laced ex-husband. High-end sushi bars, nightclubs, and New Wave art galleries all figure in this stylish neon noir that blows the roof off traditional crime fiction: a slick and sexy tonic that takes readers on a genre-bender of dizzying proportions.

Fraser Nixon was born on the West Coast and has lived in Montreal, Toronto, Paris and Vancouver. By turns an actor, painter, electrical apprentice and hotel night manager, he has worked as a salesman of newspaper advertising, ice cream, opera tickets and men's casual slacks. The Man Who Killed is his first novel.

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A clever, stylish, and funny tale of stolen drugs, crooked cops, and a torrid summer romance between a rich guy from the West Side and smart girl from Chinatown, the book is like the love child of Elmore Leonard's Rum Punch and Bret Easton Ellis's Less Than Zero. -Georgia Straight

Georgia Straight

This book delivers a full adult dose of reading pleasure. Highly recommended ... you will never look at a caulking gun or garden shears the same way after you finish this book. -Vancouver Sun

Vancouver Sun

Straight to the Head nails [Vancouver's] anxieties. Nixon knows his slice of time and place, how to deliver it, and what it means. Straight to the Head is pointed and political like the best noir -- a shot through the Cascadian shroud of haze. -Discorder

Discorder