Weekly

After studying German language, literature and history at Frankfurt University, Jan Costin Wagner went on to work as a journalist and freelance writer. He divides his time between Germany and Finland. He has two previous novels, including Ice Moon, which was the first to be translated into English. He presents the 2008 German Crime Prize-winning novel Silence, a psychological crime thriller featuring Finnish police detective Kimmo Joentaa. A major German feature film based on the book has also been released.

Selected from 15 years of radio-show archives and re-edited by the author, this wonderfully eclectic essay collection gives a glimpse into the thoughtful mind at work behind CBC Radio’s The Vinyl Cafe. Topics range from serious meditations on peacekeeping to light-hearted praise for the toothpick. With thought-provoking prose about the world we live in and introductions to the people he meets in his extensive travels across the country, Stuart McLean paints a beautiful picture of his intimate relationship with Canada and Canadians.

Stuart McLean has sold over 1 million books in Canada alone. Writer and host of the CBC Radio show The Vinyl Cafe, he is also the author of the bestselling books Vinyl Cafe Diaries, which won the Canadian Authors Association Award for short fiction; Welcome Home: Travels in Smalltown Canada, which won the Canadian Authors Association Award for non-fiction; and Home from the Vinyl Cafe and Vinyl Cafe Unplugged, both of which won the Stephen Leacock Award for Humour. McLean presents his latest addition to the Vinyl Cafe series, The Vinyl Cafe Notebooks, a collection of essays selected from his 15 years of radio-show archives.

A young girl disappears and her abandoned bike is found in exactly the same place another girl was assaulted and murdered 33 years previously. Authorities suspect that the same killer who eluded them then, has managed to strike again. Detective Kimmo Joentaa calls upon the help of his older colleague Ketola, who worked on the original murder, in hopes that they can solve both cases. While following up leads, the ripples from the impact of the new disappearance spread and Kimmo discovers that the truth is not always what you expect.

In 1916, two Mounted Police officers set out on a year-long odyssey to investigate the fate of two Catholic priests who disappeared in the remote Arctic region of Coppermine in 1913. After finding the bodies, two Inuit hunters are tracked and apprehended, and the four begin an arduous journey to Edmonton. At the top of the world, the brutal Arctic winter descends, and the fight for survival, and justice, begins.

Keith Ross Leckie has worked in the film and television business as a dramatic scriptwriter for more than 30 years. His credits include multiple CBC miniseries, including Everest!, Shattered City, Milgaard, The Arrow, and Lost in the Barrens. He is also the author of The Seventh Gate. Leckie reads from Coppermine, a Canadian wilderness adventure following the search for two Catholic priests in a remote area of the Arctic and what follows once their bodies are found.

In a letter to his son, Moses Froben – a man leading a simple life recounts his humble birth in eighteenth-century Switzerland and his life as a novice monk, and tells of his two noble friends and a forbidden lover. In his letter he reveals the astonishing secrets of his past and answers the question that has shadowed his fame as the star singer in the church choir: how did Moses Froben, world-renowned musico, come to raise a son who by all rights he could never have fathered?

Born in New Hampshire, Richard Harvell studied English literature at Dartmouth College. He now lives in Basel, Switzerland. Harvell presents his debut novel, The Bells, the confession of a thief, kidnapper and unlikely lover.