Stories

  • When a body is found in a western Ukrainian ditch during the spring thaw, Homicide detective Valery Petrov knows it's likely a case of drunken misadventure. But there's something about the victim, his lovely wife and her young mechanic friend that keeps Petrov coming back with more questions. And it might not be answers he's after.

  • On a frigid morning in Alaska, early in 1873, Junior Mackay's boss gives him the job a lifetime: take seven hundred tons of ice by steamship to Panama City, where people want their drinks cold and meat fresh. With his best friend Gideon Bell at his side, Junior sails farther than he's ever been and lands in one of the wildest places left on earth. It doesn't take long for their plans to go awry, and Junior and Gideon have to fight their way through a deadly jungle to Panama's other coast, before their precious cargo melts into water.
  • Kill Or Be Killed.

    After two knee injuries, ex-Hollywood stuntman Nathan Goodman is reduced to faking insurance scams in icy Buffalo, NY. When he picks the wrong target, he is swept up into a plot to kill an innocent child. Will he carry out this vendetta -- or save a life at the risk of his own?

  • Brendan and Mike thought an old man alone would be an easy touch. They have no idea who Lester Walls once was. Or what he's capable of today. And coming onto his secluded property could cost them their lives just like that.
  • Red Dot

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    The house across the street has erupted in violence before. It happens again late one summer night. Nadine hears a young girl scream, sees her alone in the street as her mother is beaten in the shadows. No one is doing anything. Except Nadine.

  • Meet Max Handler

    On a hot summer day in 1951, Montreal homicide sergeant Max Handler gets the call he's been dreading. After four days of searching, the body of young Irene Czerniak has been found. Max's search for her killer takes him from the grim east-end streets to the glittering Sainte-Catherine strip where Sammy Davis, Jr., Frank Sinatra and Oscar Peterson played. Commissioned by editors John McFetridge and Jacques Filippi for Akashic Books' acclaimed new anthology Montreal Noir, Milk Teeth shows why Howard Shrier consistently earns rave reviews and national awards for his work.

  • He's always had Jonah Geller's back. Now he has to watch his own.

    Follow Dante Ryan, former hit man and reluctant restauranteur, as he tracks a crooked financier who fled with millions in mob money to a lonely house on a Dominican hill.

  • Read the story that took first place in the 2021 Toronto Star Short Story Contest. From acclaimed author Howard Shrier comes a short, shocking tale about two brothers driven by desperate but opposing needs.
  • A break-in at his dad's house. A shocking secret hidden for years. An epic confrontation between a towering father and the son who has struggled in his shadow. Acclaimed crime writer Howard Shrier digs into his Montreal roots for a story only he could write.

  • You can't get to Matt Penny's remote tattoo shop on foot. But one afternoon a man without a car turns up at his door, offering Matt double his rate to cover an old tattoo. It's not an easy fix but Matt pulls it off. Then the client tries to kill him and Matt has to figure out why -- and how he can fight an armed killer with nothing more than his talent and ingenuity.

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