A biography of Canada’s first prime minister, a legendary political strategist who helped found a new nation in 1867. Shocked by Canada’s 1837 rebellions, John A. Macdonald sought to build alliances and avoid future conflicts. Thanks to financial worries and an alcohol problem, he almost quit politics in 1864. The challenge of building Confederation harnessed his skills, and in 1867 he became the country’s first prime minister. As «Sir John A.,» he drove the Dominion’s westward expansion, rapidly incorporating the Prairies and British Columbia before a railway contract scandal unseated him in 1873. He conquered his drinking problem and rebuilt the Conservative Party to regain power in 1878. The centrepiece of his protectionist National Policy was the transcontinental railway, but a western uprising in 1885 was followed by the controversial execution of rebel leader Louis Riel. Although dominant nationally, Macdonald often cut ethical corners to resist the formidable challenge of the Ontario Liberals in his own province. John A. Macdonald created Canada, but this popular hero had many flaws.
A literary mystery where the people and the settings in the exotic East are paramount. Two entwined mysteries unfold in two time periods in Singapore – one in the present and the other in the 1920s. Artist Maris Cousins has lived in Singapore for four years, but the sudden death of her mentor, gallery owner Peter Stone, causes her to stop painting and leave Singapore to reconnect with her family in Canada. There she becomes immersed in the fictional stories of love and betrayal from Singapore’s past – in first editions left to her by Stone – written by a famous early-20th-century author, E. Sutcliffe Moresby. Drawn back to Singapore and the gallery, she searches for answers to the mystery of three people – a writer, his young wife, and their baby – who seem to be linked to Stone. But along the way, Maris becomes caught up in circumstances involving smuggling and possibly murder.
What starts as a simple fishing trip becomes a cathartic experience in the untamed wilderness of Ontario’s northwestern canoe country. A nine-day fishing trip turns into a profound life-altering event and marks the beginning of a lifelong love affair with the untamed wilderness of Canoe Country in northwestern Ontario. Author Darryl Blazino describes how he became entranced by the beauty and wonder of a land that beckoned him back again and again. This collection of personal stories captures a range of experiences and emotions highlighting the very best and very worst of times gleaned from more than 12 years’ worth of adventures in the great outdoors. Incredible close-up, intimate encounters with wildlife, harrowing brushes with danger, the challenges of wilderness camping with small children, and moments of intense splendour and serenity are told in descriptive detail and illustrated with breathtaking photography.
Nominated for the 2016 Forest of Reading Evergreen Award Nominated for the 2014 Victoria Book Prize An Englishwoman’s mysterious death in 19th-century West Africa haunts those left behind. Letitia Landon, «Letty» to her friends, is an intelligent, witty, successful writer, much sought after for dinner parties and soirées in the London of the 1830s. But, still single at thirty-six, she fears ending up as a wizened crone in a dilapidated country cottage, a cat her only companion. Just as she is beginning to believe she will never marry, she meets George Maclean, home on leave from his position as the governor of Cape Coast Castle on the Gold Coast of West Africa. George and Letty marry quietly and set sail for Cape Coast. Eight weeks later she is dead – not from malaria or dysentery or any of the multitude of dangers in her new home, but by her own hand. Or so it would seem. Local Customs examines, in poetic detail, a way of life that has faded into history. It was a time when religious and cultural assimilation in the British colonies gave rise to a new, strange social order. Letty speaks from beyond the grave to let the reader see the world through her eyes and explore the mystery of her death. Was she disturbed enough to kill herself, or was someone – or something – else involved?
Inspector Green is coping with an office job, still eager to get back into the day-to-day fray of policing. His chance comes when an unidentified woman is drowned in the Ottawa River. In her possession is a Medal for Bravery from a peacekeeping mission. As Green and his team dig deeper into the military past, Green finds himself sucked not only into the murky past of a peacekeeping unit but into the high-stakes present of a federal election race. What crime was committed in Yugoslavia more than a decade ago? Is someone still killing to prevent that secret from coming to light? And does the diary of a dead soldier hold the key?
Accident or suicide? That’s the simple question put to Inspector Michael Green when a derelict stranger falls to his death from an abandoned church tower in a quiet river village at the edge of his jurisdiction. But when the victim turns out be a long lost son of a local farm family cursed in recent years by tragedy, madness and death, Green begins to suspect something far more sinister is at work. Probing the family’s past, he uncovers a toxic mix of rigid fundamentalism, teenage rebellion and a family secret so horrific that twenty years later, someone is still desperate to prevent the truth from coming to light.
A seventeen-year-old sets out to meet her secret lover by an Ottawa waterfall. Three days later, her body washes up in the shallows. The public fears a sexual predator is on the loose, but Inspector Green suspects a more personal connection. His search for answers draws him into the world of elite young athletes, drugs and teenage sexuality. Then a social worker who knows too much disappears, and blood is found in the house of a star with NHL prospects. Unless Green can unravel the truth, how many others will pay the ultimate price for a young mans dreams?
Mike Filey brings Toronto’s history and the stories of its people and places to life. Mike Filey’s column «The Way We Were» first appeared in the Toronto Sunday Sun not long after the first edition of the paper hit the newsstands on September 16, 1973. Now, almost four decades later, Filey’s column has enjoyed an uninterrupted stretch as one of the newspaper’s most widely read features. In 1992 a number of his columns were reprinted in Toronto Sketches: «The Way We Were.» Since then another nine volumes have been published, each of which has attained great success. Included in this latest compilation are stories about the controversial, though not altogether new, improvements to the TTC’s St. Clair streetcar route, as well as accounts of such fondly remembered gasoline brands as Joy, B-A, and White Rose. Then there are those popular Great Lakes passenger ships that carried thousands to such «foreign» ports as Lewiston and Rochester in New York State. Recounting the unforgettable Toronto snowstorm of 1944 and the tragedy of the fire aboard the SS Noronic prove that not all memories are pleasant ones.
There’s nowhere to hide from international intrigue and murder most foul even on an island as small as Guernsey. Second in the Moretti and Falla Mystery series. In St. Peter Port Harbour on the Channel Island of Guernsey, Detective Inspector Ed Moretti and his partner, Detective Sergeant Liz Falla, are called in to investigate the shooting death of arms dealer Bernard Masterson on the Just Desserts , his luxury yacht. Why are Masterson, his glamorous partner in crime, Adèle Letourneau, and his thuggish bodyguard here on the island? And how are an ex-Folies Bergère dancer, a former espionage agent, and a wealthy sax-playing financier involved – or are they? With the knowledge that there’s nowhere to hide in a world now as small as his island, and not knowing whom to trust in a mystery involving money and international intrigue, Moretti goes to London in search of answers, returning to Guernsey for a violent showdown on the Just Desserts . Watch for Blood WIll Out arriving September 2014.
For many, being a Toronto Maple Leafs fan has become a curse from cradle to grave. False hope, hollow promises, and a mind-numbing lack of success – these words describe the Toronto Maple Leafs and the hockey club’s inexplicable mediocrity over much of the past decade. Author Peter Robinson has attended some 100 games over the past six seasons and has little to show for it except an unquenched thirst that keeps him coming back. Why does a team that hasn’t won a Stanley Cup since 1967, long before many of its followers were even born, have such a hold on its fans? Robinson tries to answer that question and more while detailing what it’s like to love one of the most unlovable teams in all of professional sports. Being a Leafs fan requires a leap of faith every year, girding against inevitable disappointment. This book tells what that’s like, how it got to be that way, and what the future holds for all who worship the Blue and White.