Northern Gothic Mysteries

Winner, Crime Writers of Canada Award Of Excellence―Best Crime Novel Set in Canada 2025 Hugh Mercer has come to a small town in Ontario, far away from his broken career, broken marriage, and broken life in New York. He's expecting to take advantage of what he's sure will be a peaceful place in the middle of winter to begin to make some sense of the situations he's left behind. Before he has a chance to settle into his rented farmhouse, a strange woman appears on his doorstep and makes a startling prediction: Elizabeth Goode, a local, is about to disappear under bizarre circumstances and her life is at risk. Mercer needs further information, but as quickly as she appeared, the stranger is gone. Within a few days, Elizabeth Goode does indeed vanish from a café in town and all the witnesses have different accounts of the event. Her life now depends on the skills Mercer honed in the New York Police Department as a homicide detective and the down-to-earth abilities of local police officer Alice Morrow. Together they work to solve the mystery of the disappearance and get to Elizabeth before she is murdered; but they, too, are troubled by their own need for forgiveness, their desire for justice, and their passion for each other.

A TRAGIC DOUBLE HOMICIDE, OR A HIDDEN SERIAL KILLER? SERGEANT ALICE MORROW IS DETERMINED TO SOLVE A MYSTERY SPANNING SIXTY YEARS. When Evelyn Massey is found dead in her home, it seems like an open-and-shut case: Evelyn was one hundred years old-natural causes. But Sergeant Alice Morrow learns that traces of poison were found in Mrs. Massey's blood. Then the remains of a body some sixty years deceased are discovered in the dead woman's basement. Two murders, decades apart. Are they connected? In the second book in Shane Peacock's award-winning Northern Gothic Mystery series, Morrow and former NYPD homicide detective Hugh Mercer unearth stunning truths about Evelyn Massey's life and learn of other disappearances over the past sixty years. Was a serial killer quietly at work in this Ontario town? Could the murderer still be among its citizens, hidden in plain sight?