by Lou Allin

Belle Palmer’s old high-school boyfriend rents a property on her road. Zoologist Gary Myers is studying the behaviour of elk in the wilderness., but soon he is found drowned. Did he fall and hit his head, or did a more sinister event occur? Meanwhile, someone has broken into his cottage, taking a camera and laptop. A clipping about poisoning on reserves leads Belle to visit the place of his demise. Seconds after she arrives, she is at gunpoint. She must paddle into the bush with no way back. Who has been causing havoc in the wilderness and will stop at nothing to cover their crimes?

280 pages / 5 1/8 x 7 1/2 / ISBN 978-1894917-33-9 / Cdn. $15.95, U.S. $14.95

Murder, Eh?

"... a trip readers won't quickly forget." - Margaret Cannon, The Globe and Mail

Northern Ontario realtor Belle Palmer is showing the lakefront mansion of a prominent businesswoman when she discovers the lady strangled in her bathtub. Could this third break-and-enter death reveal a serial killer at large in the Nickel Capital? The woman’s only child, a precocious twelve-year-old, comes to stay with Belle’s neighbours and wins her heart and theirs. Then after an argument, the boy disappears, riding off into the cold September night on his bicycle. Racing against time as fall temperatures plummet, Belle hooks up with a bumbling PI and joins the search. Belle must flee into the bush, where she has every chance of becoming lost and disoriented, chased by murderers who will stop at nothing to protect a multi-million-dollar criminal empire.

280 pages / 5 1/8 x 7 1/2 / ISBN 978-1894917-27-8 / Cdn. $14.95, U.S. $12.95

Bush Poodles Are Murder

"...best in the Belle Palmer series. Allin takes full advantage of her northern Ontario setting, has excellent characters with depth and manages a finely tuned puzzle plot..." - The Globe and Mail

In the third Belle Palmer mystery, Belle takes her friend and employee on a snowshoe trek. Miriam MacDonald brings her spoiled mini-poodle, a gift from investment broker boyfriend, who promises huge returns on her life savings. Later that week, Miriam discovers Elphinstone bludgeoned to death in his condo. Although Miriam's fingerprints alone are found on the Inuit sculpture murder weapon, the collapse of Elphinstone's empire has ruined hundreds of people and made him many dangerous enemies.

Miriam is eventually charged with second-degree murder and then, as Belle struggles to pull the pieces of a very complicated puzzle together, Miriam rushes off to North Bay to be with her ailing daughter, and Belle inherits the obnoxious poodle..

Meanwhile, a stalker now has Belle watching her back in the Northern Ontario bush she calls home. Will she find the killer before a bullet finds her?

280 pages / 5 1/8 x 7 1/2 / ISBN 978-1894917-04-9 / Cdn. $12.95, U.S. $10.95

Blackflies Are Murder

Shortlisted for an Arthur Ellis Award for Best Novel!

"This is the summer sequel to Northern Winters are Murder, and, if you missed that one in a blizzard, you might want to save this one for a lazy summer day. This is escape reading in all its glory, but reality, like blackflies, buzzes beneath the fun...The plot is a nifty puzzle..." -The Globe and Mail

"Allin has an excellent sense of both place and people. She presents the wild beautiful and dangerous country of the Canadian Shield with as much feeling and care as she does her very strong characters. For a city reader like myself, this story is a guided tour to another world." - Independently Reviewed

In the sequel to Northern Winters Are Murder, it's now high summer in Northern Ontario, where everyone is bear bait, even the bears. Gunshots chase Belle Palmer from her quiet forest paths. Then, on her remote lakeside road, the savage and unexplainable murder of an elderly neighbour puts her on guard against two-footed killers. Does the answer lie in the woods? In the alleys of the Nickel Capital? Or in the black rock moonscape of an ecological disaster area?

Belle's investigations gradually uncover the sordid details of a sexual abuse scandal in a residential school years before that has left scars on its victim that can never heal. The horrifying truth and its deadly fallout may destroy many more lives before this tragedy reaches its last act.

280 pages / 5 1/8 x 7 1/2 / ISBN 978-0929141-92-3 / Cdn. $12.95, U.S. $10.95

Northern Winters Are Murder

Lou Allin excels at making the frigid Ontario cold seep into your bones with vivid pictures of life in the Northern wilderness. The book starts at the cold pace of winter and picks up as the thaw draws closer...Northern Winters Are Murder is a cozy read." -Bookreporter.com

Another freezing winter descends in seeming peace upon the Northern Ontario lake where realtor Belle Palmer lives genteelly with her dog, tropical fishes and classic film collection. But the snow-laden tranquillity is tragically disturbed when a good friend is lost in a freak snowmobile accident on an isolated lake. Or so it seems. Belle and others suspect foul play, but a motive and a criminal prove hard to find. Resort owners, anti-environmentalists and the new local drug dealers may all have had reason to want Jim Burian quietly removed, and information isn't forthcoming. Belle is determined to find out what happened to this decent man, but she is shocked when she discovers what twisted roots underlie this savage crime on idyllic northern ice.

264 pages / 5 1/8 x 7 1/2 / ISBN 978-0929141-74-9 / Cdn. $12.95, U.S. $10.95