The gripping second installment of the MacNeice Mysteries reads like a crossover episode between Sons of Anarchy and Dexter, as Detective Superintendent MacNeice and his team face off against a gang of violent bikers and a bloodthirsty serial killer…

As a local biker war rages — seven shrink-wrapped corpses have been found buried on a farm just outside of Dundurn — an ambitious waterfront project meant to revive the dying industrial city is underway. Dredging is nearly complete when six more bodies turn up at the bottom of the lake. With the body count rising, the situation in Dundurn escalates as a serial killer begins targeting the city’s successful young women of colour.

Outgunned by the bikers and outmaneuvered by the serial killer, MacNeice convinces Fiza Aziz, the young Muslim detective who burned out on their last case together, to come back to the force. Things go well until Aziz deliberately puts herself in the killer’s sights…

SCOTT THORNLEY grew up in Hamilton, Ontario, which inspired his fictional Dundurn. He is the author of five novels in the critically acclaimed MacNeice Mysteries series: Erasing Memory, The Ambitious City, Raw Bone, Vantage Point, and Middlemen. He was appointed to the Royal Canadian Academy of the Arts in 1990. In 2018, he was named a Member of the Order of Canada. Thornley divides his time between Toronto and the southwest of France.

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Captivating. . . . Along with a terrific plot, Thornley produces prose that is both hard-hitting and thoughtful. . . . I’m already anticipating MacNeice’s next investigation.

Edmonton Journal

No writer grabs the violent new zeitgeist more firmly than Scott Thornley with his second book, The Ambitious City.

Toronto Star

Terrific. . . . Thornley blends history into a really good cop-shop story. . . . Read this and then look for the first MacNeice book, Erasing Memory.

Globe and Mail