May 2018

My friends often look at me as if trying to understand what goes on in the recesses of my brain. “Where do you get your ideas?” they ask. “You know, for murder and stuff.”

“I’m not really sure,” I usually respond, but the truth is that an idea for a storyline can come from a number of unexpected sources. A writer only needs to be open to grasping onto one when it flashes by.

May 25, 2018―Dundurn Press is thrilled to announce that Full Curl by Dave Butler won the 2018 Arthur Ellis Award for Best First Crime Novel last night at the Arthur Ellis Awards Gala in Toronto. Dundurn acquisitions editor Scott Fraser accepted the award on behalf of Dave Butler. The annual Arthur Ellis Awards by Crime Writers of Canada recognizes the best in mystery, crime, and suspense writing in fiction and non-fiction by Canadian writers.

Dundurn Press, a leading independent Canadian publisher, is hiring a full-time publicist in our Toronto office.  The publicist’s primary responsibilities are to successfully plan and secure publicity for a selected number of titles each publishing season and to develop and maintain strong working relationships with media and authors. The publicist will report to the Publicity Manager.

Duties and responsibilities:

“How much of you is in your Cullen and Cobb characters?”

It’s a question I’m often asked and for a long time my stock answer was not much, if anything at all.

But as I think about it more and more, I’m not so sure. In fact, I’d say there are varying degrees of me in a number of my characters, and the Cullen and Cobb series is no exception.

In day-to-day life I’m fairly unflappable, but when it comes to writing, I’m a worrier, always finding new things to flap about. Last year it was a concern that there’s an element of the unreal in my BC Blues crime series. I felt that to fit on the shelf labelled “Police Procedural,” a novel has to reflect life to a T, with grit, dirt, cruelty, violence, and all the rest, and should never touch on magic.

May 4, 2018―Dundurn Press is pleased to announce that Full Curl by Dave Butler has been shortlisted for the Kobo Emerging Writer Prize in the mystery category.  This is the fourth annual Emerging Writer Prize. The 2018 shortlist, selected by Kobo’s team of booksellers and booklovers—with book completion rates, customer ratings and reviews considered—comprises six books from each genre. Linwood Barclay will be choosing the winning mystery book and that will be announced on the evening of June 19, 2018.

“Look, this is your book,” my four-year-old nephew tells me, brandishing a copy of Journey through Genocide I’d gifted to my sister.

“Right, now give it back to mom,” I say, waiting for the moment he would ask me what it was about, somewhat dreading it.