The Man Who Killed

Nominated for an Arthur Ellis Award by the Crime Writers of Canada

Montreal, 1926. Mick is down on his luck until an old pal offers him a loaded revolver and a job: riding shotgun in a truck running booze across the border. Stateside Prohibition has opened up a market for certain amusements, vicious or otherwise. Mick takes the job—and his problems begin.

Through his old friend Jack, Mick falls deeper into the life of the small-time tough. From whorehouse to gentlemen’s club, through back alleys and deluxe hotels, jazz joints, opium dens, baseball diamonds, cheap diners and anywhere trouble is to be found, Mick burns his way through the City of Two Solitudes. Other people are in town for their own reasons. Babe Ruth’s here; Harry Houdini, too.

The Man Who Killed is a tale of political corruption and crime, of sexual jealousy and heartbreak, a portrait of a city after last call, of smoke-filled saloons and gunfire in the night. Shot through with dark humour and strange pathos, this is a novel of two friends who do bad things mostly for money, sometimes for fun, and the women they love.