Welcome to The Dark Side, a collection of excerpts from some of Simon & Schuster Canada’s most terrifying, mysterious, and suspenseful novels. From Nick Cutter’s old-school thriller, The Troop, to Kathy Reichs’ internationally bestselling Bones series, these stories will leave you trembling.

The Dark Side ebook includes excerpts from:

Bones of the Lost by Kathy Reichs

The Demonologist by Andrew Pyper

Shoot the Dog by Brad Smith

Eye of the Storm by Rob Pobi

The Troop by Nick Cutter

Open Secret by Deryn Collier

A Murder of Crows by David Rotenberg

The Guilty by Sean Slater

Death of a Patriot by Don Gutteridge

Stranglehold by Robert Rotenberg

Freak by Jennifer Hillier

Kathy Reichs’s first novel Déjà Dead, published in 1997, was a #1 New York Times bestseller and won the Ellis Award for Best First Novel. A Conspiracy of Bones is Kathy’s nineteenth entry in her series featuring forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan. Kathy was also a producer of the hit Fox TV series, Bones, which is based on her work and her novels. She is one of very few forensic anthropologists certified by the American Board of Forensic Anthropology. She served on the Board of Directors and as Vice President of both the American Academy of Forensic Sciences and the American Board of Forensic Anthropology, and as a member of the National Police Services Advisory Council in Canada. She divides her time between Charlotte, North Carolina, and Montreal, Québec. Visit Kathy at KathyReichs.com.

Kathy Reichs' profile page

ANDREW PYPER is the author of Lost Girls, his highly acclaimed first novel that was a bestseller in Canada, in the Top 10 on the TimesUK paperback list and in the Top 30 of The New York Times paperback bestseller list. The novel was selected as a Notable Book of the Year by The Globe and Mail and The New York Times and is currently being adapted for the screen. His second novel, The Trade Mission, was selected as a Top 10 Best Book of the Year by the Toronto Star and was published in Canada, the US and the UK to great acclaim. Pyper is also theauthor of Kiss Me, a collection of short stories. While researching and writing The Wildfire Season, he spent three of the past five summers living in the Yukon. His home is in Toronto. Visit his website at www.andrewpyper.com.

Andrew Pyper's profile page

Brad Smith, writer born and raised in the hamlet of Canfield, in southern Ontario, a couple of hours from Toronto. After high school, he worked for the signal department of the Canadian National Railway for three years, and then got a chance to work on a rail project in South Africa. Upon returning from Africa, Smith worked all over the place - Alberta, British Columbia, Texas - at a variety of jobs. Farmer, signalman, insulator, truck driver, bartender, schoolteacher, maintenance mechanic, roofer, and so on. He became a carpenter and built custom homes in Canada. He still works as a carpenter when not writing. He now lives in an eighty-year-old farmhouse near the north shore of Lake Erie. His books have been published by Penguin Canada, Doubleday Canada, Simon & Schuster Canada and his forthcoming novel will be published by At Bay Press.

Brad Smith's profile page

Robert Pobi dealt in fine Georgian antiques for thirteen years before turning to writing full-time. He has fished for everything that swims—from great white sharks off Montauk to monstrous pike in northern Finland. He prefers bourbon to scotch and shucks oysters with an old hunting knife he modified with a grinder. In warm weather he spends much of his time at a cabin on a secluded lake in the mountains and when the mercury falls he heads to the Florida Keys. The critical response to his first short story (written when he was twelve) was a suspension from school. Now he writes every day—at a desk once owned by Roberto Calvi.

Bloodman has been published all over the world.

Visit him at www.robertpobi.com.

Robert Pobi's profile page

Nick Cutter is the author of the critically acclaimed national bestseller The Troop (which is currently being developed for film with producer James Wan), as well as The Deep and Little Heaven. He is the pseudonym for Craig Davidson, whose much-lauded literary fiction includes Rust and Bone, The Saturday Night Ghost Club, and most recently the short story collection Cascade. His story “Medium Tough” was selected by Pulitzer Prize–winning author Jennifer Egan for The Best American Short Stories 2014. He lives in Toronto, Canada.

Nick Cutter's profile page

Deryn Collier has dreamed of writing mystery novels since reading her first Nancy Drew in the second grade. She has written two previous novels: Confined Space, which was nominated for a Best First Novel Award by the Crime Writers of Canada, and Open Secret.

After moving to Montreal as a teenager, Collier instantly fell in love with the city, later graduating from McGill University. These days she lives in a small town in the mountains of British Columbia with her family, and though she has lived there for many years, she still considers Montreal to be home.

Collier enjoys gardening, sewing, and swimming year round in a glacier-fed lake and regularly overshares about these hobbies on Instagram. She writes a newsletter to her readers called The Aunt June Files, where she shares a behind-the-scenes look at her work and research in progress. Visit her website at www.deryncollier.com to subscribe.

Deryn Collier's profile page

David Rotenberg is a professor emeritus of theatre studies at York University, where he taught graduate students for over 25 years. He has released 12 novels which have been published by Penguin, Simon and Schuster, McArthur and Company, St. Martin's Press, and ECW. His novels have been optioned in the past for major motion picture adaptation. City Rising is presently in negotiation with London producers. He I s the founder and artistic director of the world-renowned actor training institute - Pro Actors Lab. His historical fiction novel entitled, City Rising is based on true events and explores the epic stories of the Iraqi-Jews, and the prominent Chinese families of the renowned port city across several centuries. It will be published by At Bay Press in the Fall of 2023.

David Rotenberg's profile page

Sean Slater is the pseudonym for Vancouver Police Officer Sean Sommerville. As a police officer, Sommerville works in Canada's poorest slum, the Downtown East Side—an area rife with poverty, mental illness, drug use, prostitution, and gang warfare. He has investigated everything from frauds and extortions to homicides. Sommerville has written numerous columns and editorials for the city newspaper. When not patrolling the “Skids,” Sean is working hard on the next novel in the Jacob Striker series.

Sean Slater's profile page

Don Gutteridge is the author of more than forty books: poetry, fiction and scholarly works in educational theory and practice. He was born in Sarnia, Ontario, and raised in the nearby village of Point Edward. He graduated from Western University in 1960 with an Honours English degree, and taught high school English for seven years before moving to the Western Faculty of Education. He taught there for twenty—five years and is now Professor Emeritus. He lives in London, Ontario. In a review of his book The Way It Was, in The Western News, Kane Faucher said Gutteridge's poems have been "memorially 'lived in'" and "must negotiate a world with - and without - words…Both pleasant and haunting, we are treated to a world of velvet voices…in a memorial transfer from past to present, from present to beyond."

Don Gutteridge's profile page

Robert Rotenberg is one of Toronto’s top criminal lawyers and the author of several bestselling novels, including Old City Hall, The Guilty Plea, Stray Bullets, and Stranglehold. He lives in Toronto with his wife, television news producer Vaune Davis, and their three children. Visit him at RobertRotenberg.com or follow him @RobertRotenberg.

Robert Rotenberg's profile page

Jennifer Hillier is the USA TODAY bestselling and award-winning author of Things We Do in the Dark, Little Secrets, Jar of Hearts, Wonderland, Freak, and Creep. A Filipino Canadian born and raised in the Toronto area, she spent eight years in Seattle, which is where all her books are set. She now lives in Oakville, Ontario, Canada with her husband and son. Visit her on the web at JenniferHillierBooks.com.

Jennifer Hillier's profile page