You can help the Scotiabank Giller Prize select the titles for the longlist here: http://www.scotiabankgillerprize.com/canlit2011.html

Best of luck to Dundurn authors Lou Allin, Brenda Chapman, Farzana Doctor, Jill Downie, Don Easton, Barbra Fradkin, C.B. Forrest, d leonard freeston, Kenneth J. Harvey, John Moss, and Gregor Robinson, all of whom appear on the Scotiabank Giller prize website, the first step to making the Scotiabank Giller Prize longlist, shortlist, and ultimately winning the coveted Giller Prize.

Before we run out to buy a case of celebratory champagne, Scotiabank Giller prize cautains gentle readers that these books qualify to be submitted to, or called in by the jury. In other words this is just the first of many steps, but you can help make the jury’s job easier by suggesting your favorite author at the above link.

What a great pedigree of CanLit writers, at Dundurn and at all the other hard working Canadian publishing houses.

Looking for a book to read this summer? A great choice whether you’re lounging in the sunshine (hopefully) or curled up in a comfy chair avoiding the rain (preferably not), is Reluctant Dead – the newly released exciting third novel in the Quin and Morgan Detective series by John Moss. Previously a writer of literary criticism, John Moss was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2006 for his work.  Since switching to mysteries he has published two other titles in the Quin and Morgan series, Still Waters and Grave Doubts, under the Dundurn imprint Castle Street Mysteries. We asked John some questions, not only about the inspiration behind his most recent work, but also about his overall thoughts on writing and the creative process. Read his answers below!

How did you come up with the idea for this work?

Reluctant Dead brings together a number of passions I’ve nurtured over the years that led up to my writing mysteries. I have trekked over much of Baffin Island as a self-contained unit, carrying all my gear on my back as I explored the Arctic landscape and wrote about my experiences. Beverley Haun, my partner in crime, pursued research on legendary Easter Island in the South Pacific and I have had the good fortune to travel there with her on several occasions. For years it struck me that there are profound similarities between these two very different parts of the world, but it was not until I turned from academic travel writing to mysteries that I was able to bring them together. Both the lands of the Inuit and the Polynesian island “at the centre of the world” are repositories of ancestral memories only dimly perceived that still inspire their peoples to remarkable pride. I tried to capture some of this fierce resilience in a context of intrigue and mystery that would allow me to revisit both places and excite my readers with the story of a people who refuse to fade away. My perspective is through the eyes of keen outsiders – police detectives who, after being to the Arctic and the South Pacific, return to Toronto to piece together their separate stories.

In your own work, which character are you most attached to, and why?

I’m attached to all my characters. If I’m not, if we don’t connect, they’re not real. And if we do connect, they are so real to me they continually surprise me. Even my most minor characters have back stories and authentic personalities. Life is too brief to spend time with them otherwise. The featured detectives in my Quin and Morgan mystery series are first and foremost engaging humans dealing with life and death, passion and fear, logic and intuition; working homicide for the Toronto Police service through the comedy and tragedy of life under duress. Miranda Quin is in her late thirties. The reader and I share in knowing her, who she is, how she thinks, what she remembers. David Morgan is in his early forties and a very different character. And yet we meet inside his life in much the same way.

Describe your ideal writing environment.

I am a compulsive writer. In another age I might have been a voluminous diarist. I write while I’m out on the land in the Arctic and on the beaches of Polynesia, but I’m happiest with my laptop poised on my knees for three or four hours every morning, writing in front of an open fire at our old stone farmhouse in Peterborough.

What was the creative process like for you?

What we call the creative process is a phrase to describe artistic endeavours when they’re going really well. Inspiration, itself, is a foundling. There must be the desperate urge, the rage, to create. As William Blake observed, without inspiration and rage struggling together in the writer’s breast, there is no true creation. This holds true for the genre writer as much as for the laurelled poet.

 What’s the best advice you’ve ever received as a writer?

 The best advice I ever received as a writer is to go through the first draft, select all the best parts, and delete them. The best advice I’ve ever given is to write, then re-write, re-write, and re-write.

Talking about the media, I would like to send a big shout out to Don Graves, mystery book columnist with the Hamilton Spectator, who continually provides insightful reviews of Canadian mysteries. Recently Don reviewed John Moss’ Grave Doubts - his second novel featuring the detective duo Quin and Morgan. Here’s a brief snippet from that review.

“Quin and Morgan are as quirky and dynamic a duo as there is out there fighting crime, exploring life and spinning solutions to life’s mysteries … Grave Doubts is writing that moves the mystery novel beyond the often trite label of genre fiction into crafted storytelling that delves into the energy and desperation behind actions that can both define and destroy lives.”

Click here to read the entire review.

“Still Waters is both an assured debut in the mystery category and offbeat in the charming way only a newbie can be … This is the kind of mystery in which the detectives themselves are intimately involved with the crime, to the point of placing their own lives in jeopardy. Now I know this sounds like another case of literary flourishes and subplots distracting from the good, clean fun of solving gruesome homicides. Yet it works really well. At first, the cops seem hopelessly self-obsessed and unreal as they swap prolonged personal cracks over dead bodies, but eventually you get drawn into their lives in a way that makes solving the crime even more vital. If anything, Moss’s character-driving writing in Still Waters reminds me of the involving work of the British writer Reginald Hill in the famed Dalziel and Pascoe series. Sure, it’s not quite realistic: do we think modern police officers are intimately connected with all their cases? No, but it makes for entracing fiction … I really want to know what hot water Quin and Morgan get into on their next case.”

“… John Moss is off to a good start, and Morgan and Quin are promising and appealing protagonists worth following in future books.” – Sarah Weinman, Quill and Quire

“Still Waters is for mystery readers who like to take things slow, which is a great change-up from most new releases.”  – Bruce Grossman, Bookgasm.com
To read what else Bruce had to say click here.

“Recommended as a read for any mystery buff who enjoys those added touches that will keep you reading. Talented author John Moss has crafted a tale you will remember and have you looking for others of his work.” - Anne K. Edwards, New Mystery Reader. Read Anne’s full here.  

And for those of you in Toronto, John is one of the featured authors at this Tuesday’s (December 9) Mystery Reading Series at Casa Loma. John will be reading from Still Waters and answering questions from the audience. For more information click here. If you find yourself Christmas shopping at the Chaptersin Peterborough on Saturday, December 13th, be sure to take a break to meet John who will be signing copies of Still Waters from 11-2pm.

Still Waters, the newest addition to Dundurn’s Castle Street mystery line, by noted academic John Moss has been receiving great reviews from mystery critics since its publication last month. The witty verbal sparing between Still Waters’ detective duo David Morgan and Miranda Quin are reminding the critics of Reginald Hill’s Dalziel and Pascoe and Hammett’s Thin Man duo Nick and Nora Charles. And Moss’ writing has been described as being a la Robertson Davies and Ross Macdonald. Not too shabby! And here’s a neat coincidence for you – this Spring Dundurn is publishing a new biography on Robertson Davies. 

What follows is a round up of what the critics have said so far about this noir crime novel that’s sure to be a hit with mystery readers.

“Mosses’ writing is as lush as the Canadian fall setting and as exotic as the Koi themselves. The book is brimming with imagery and he writes wonderfully clever dialogue between Quin and Morgan. They put me in mind of Reginald Hill’s Daziel and Pascoe, or perhaps the clever cocktail commentary of Hammett’s Thin duo, Nick and Nora Charles … I look forward to another Quin and Morgan mystery …”
- Merrill Young, Reviewing the Evidence, October 2008

“Their relationship is well beyond anticipation, each knowing the other’s interest, inclinations, experiences and thoughts, as much as they know themselves, making for a lot of witty and insightful banter and affecting the investigation of the case.

It’s Ontario Gothic a la Robertson Davies with catacombs and dark passages every bit as foreboding as the familiar rain-slicked streets … Like Davies, there’s enough Jungian psychology and Freudian banter in Still Waters to fill a decent textbook, with ample opportunity to consider the nature of memory, loss and the role of the subconsicious in fateful decisions. Even more chilling is that, like Ross Macdonald, Moss visits the sins and crimes of his characters onto their children, ensuring the doom of succceeding generations, but if you don’t like thinking such thoughts and prefer mysteries as entertaining escapes, Moss provides all the bells, whistles and satisfying endings appropriate to the happiest of Canadian crime fiction. That may be what I find most chilling of all in this dark little tale.”
- Kerry J. Schooley, Murder Out There, October 27, 2008

“Moss spins a mystery that sparkles with dynamic setting – from the Rosedale mansion’s murky basement corridors to a world class collection of koi. The mystery is both simple and chillingly realistic … with vivid pictures, resonant insights and a spin on mystery storytelling that is as multilayered as it is beautiful, Moss teases us down the path to resolutions. Still Waters is a mystery told by a storyteller par excellence and is not to be missed.”
- Don Graves, The Hamilton Spectator, November 1, 2008

Long lost relatives?