You're being watched. Former University of Alberta lecturer Randy Craig is now working part-time at Edmonton's Grant MacEwan College, and struggling to make ends meet. That is, until she takes an evening job monitoring a chat room called Babel for an employer she knows only as "Chatgod." Between shutting down an online bookie and patrolling for porn, Randy begins to suspect a connection between a Texas woman having an online affair through Babel, and surfacing reports of a man killed at his computer in the same state.

Soon, Randy realizes that a killer is brokering hits through Babel and may be operating in Edmonton. The police are sceptical, as is Chatgod, and it seems Randy's only ally is a mysterious fellow monitor who calls himself Alchemist. Randy doesn't know whom she can trust, but the killer is on to her, and now she must figure out where the psychopath is, all the while staying one IP address ahead of becoming the next victim.

Janice MacDonald holds a Master's in English Literature from the University of Alberta where she has worked as a sessional lecturer, radio producer and bartender. She also spent a decade teaching literature, communications and creative writing at Grant MacEwan College and has held positions as both an online chatroom monitor, and distance course instructor. A consummate folkie, she plays five-string banjo, fiddle, guitar, and piano, wrote the music and lyrics for two touring historical musicals and has been a singer/songwriter. Janice lives in Edmonton with her husband Randy and is the proud mother of two glorious grown girls.

Janice MacDonald's profile page

"MacDonald sustains the mystery right to the end of this exciting novel. A sequel would be most welcome."-- Prairie Fire Review of Books

Prairie Fire Review of Books

Janice MacDonald has accomplished something no other mystery writer has done -- she has managed to convey the inherent spookiness, the disembodied projection screen, that a social cyberspace can invoke. The Monitor is a cyberspace mystery that really works as both a tale of virtual social intrigue and a real life (and death) mystery tale. This is a community I can recognize and a world that, even if virtual, sparks with fire.

Howard Rheingold