International intrigue and murder come to a small town

Stolen gems. shady cops. Murders that could lead to an international incident. Orwell Brennan, chief of the Dockerty police force in small-town Ontario, had enough problems on his hands with the mayoral election, a daughter engaged, and, perhaps worst of all, someone in the department stealing his favourite cookies.

Things are complicated for the loveable curmudgeon: a police officer from Toronto, in Dockerty as part of a Metro murder investigation, is killed in his hotel room. And the eccentric local dance teacher, a former Russian ballet star, has some very dark secrets, unsavoury associates in her past, and a slippery way with the truth. But Brennan finds help in one of his bright young officers, who teams up with the dead cop’s brash ex-partner. Together the two women uncover a ring of shady pawnbrokers, crooked public figures, and Russian thugs all after one thing — the Sacred Ember, a very rare ruby once owned by the Tsarina herself.

Marc Strange is a writer and actor. He was co-creator of The Beachcombers (with L.S. Strange) and between 1972 and 1990 wrote, directed, and/or story-edited over seventy episodes. Strange is the author of Follow Me Down (ECW Press, 2010), Sucker Punch (Dundurn, 2007), which was shortlisted for the Arthur Ellis Award for Best First Novel and Body Blows (Dundurn, 2009), winner of the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Paperback Original. He lives in Toronto.

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“Far and away the best Canadian mystery of the year thus far — vivid, emotionally complex and elegantly crafted.” — Winnipeg Free Press

“Finished off the latest Louise Penny book and wondering what to read next? Look no further than this second Orwell Brennan novel by Canadian actor/TV writer Marc Strange. He manages to make the little Ontario town of Dockerty every bit as fascinating and murderous as Penny’s Three Pines.” — Globe and Mail

“This finely detailed story contains mysteries within mysteries that are revealed, like the pieces in a matryoshka doll, one nesting inside the other.” — Publishers Weekly