Night's Child (33 page)
Authors: Maureen Jennings
–
Library Journal
“Terrific…the best historical mystery of the year…. Murdoch is a fine creation…. We can’t wait to meet him again.”
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Mystery Collectors’ BookLine
ISBN: 0-7710-4397-X
Can. $9.99/U.S. $6.95
Under the Dragon’s Tail
Women rich and poor come to her, desperate and in dire need of help–and discretion. Dolly Merishaw is a midwife and an abortionist in Victorian Toronto, but although she keeps quiet about her clients’ condition, her contempt for them and her greed leaves every one of them resentful and angry. So it comes as no surprise to Detective William Murdoch when this malicious woman is murdered. What is a shock, though, is that a week later a young boy is found dead in Dolly’s squalid kitchen. Now, Murdoch isn’t sure if he’s hunting one murderer–or two.
“Vivid…heartwrenching. Late-19th-century Toronto comes startlingly alive in Jennings’s second gripping tale.”
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Publishers Weekly
“A very powerful novel.”
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Poison Pen
“[Murdoch’s] warm heart makes him the right sleuth for this cold city.”
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New York Times
“There are touches of Anne Perry and Peter Lovesey in her clear-eyed look at the social ills of the period.”
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Denver Post
“Grab a copy of
Under the Dragon’s Tail.
…[Jennings has] a wonderful ability to describe this place and time.”
–
Mystery Collectors’ BookLine
ISBN:0-7710-4399-6
Can. $9.99/U.S. $6.95
Poor Tom Is Cold
In this third adventure featuring William Murdoch, the amiable detective becomes involved with the apparent suicide of a young colleague. Constable Oliver Wicken, the sole support of his mother and invalid sister, seems to have shot himself in the temple with his own revolver.
Murdoch’s investigation, which is driven as much by the desire of the police to avoid the stigma of a suicide in its ranks as it is by a desire to expose a crime, takes him far afield, but his suspicions begin to settle on the viperous family that lived next door to Wicken. And when the young Mrs. Eakin, the third wife of the elderly neighbour, is committed to the Provincial Lunatic Asylum, Murdoch’s doubts deepen. Is she indeed insane as the family says she is, or has she been deliberately driven to the brink of insanity?
“In this rather chilling mystery, Jennings makes us forget we’re reading something set more than a century ago; she evokes the past so vividly it almost instantly feels like the present.”
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Booklist
“Jennings has a wonderful feel for the places and tasks that give life and context to a character.”
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New York Times Book Review
“Readers are given a vivid, heart-wrenching picture of the poverty of many in Victorian Toronto.”
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Publishers Weekly
ISBN:0-7710-4395-3
Can. $8.99
Let Loose the Dogs
Once again, Maureen Jennings brings the streets of late-Victorian Toronto vividly alive.
In
Let Loose the Dogs
, Detective William Murdoch’s life and work overlap tragically. He learns that his beloved sister, who long ago fled to a cloistered convent to escape their drunken and abusive father, is on her deathbed. Meanwhile, Harry Murdoch, the father whom Murdoch had long ago shut out of his life, has been charged with murder. Harry calls on his estranged son to prove his innocence and to save his life. But, knowing his father as he does, what is Murdoch to believe?
“No author has mined Toronto’s past–specifically, the Victorian era of the 1890s–with the dedication to detail of mystery writer Maureen Jennings….
Let Loose the Dogs
follows Murdoch through a dense plot centred on a bloodthirsty gambling event of the era.”
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Toronto Star
“Jennings is too tough and honest a writer to let anyone off her moral hook, even her hero.”
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New York Times Book Review
“The fourth and perhaps darkest and most complex novel in this well-received Victorian series.”
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Publishers Weekly
“Not only the most generously plotted of Murdoch’s four cases…but the one whose constant reminders of mortality…are the most piercing.”
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Kirkus Reviews
ISBN:0-7710-4396-1
Can. $9.99
Born in Birmingham, England, Maureen Jennings emigrated to Canada at age seventeen. After studying philosophy and psychology at the University of Windsor and English literature at the University of Toronto, Jennings went on to teach English at Ryerson Polytechnic Institute. Eight years later, she left teaching to set up her own private practice as a psychotherapist.
In 1997,
Except the Dying
, Jennings’s first William Murdoch novel, was published to wide praise. It was subsequently shortlisted for both the Anthony and the Arthur Ellis best first novel awards. That success was followed by three more Murdoch mysteries:
Under the Dragon’s Tail
,
Poor Tom Is Cold
, and
Let Loose the Dogs
, which was shortlisted for the Anthony Best Historical Mystery award. Jennings is also the author of the non-fiction book
Map of Your Mind
.
Except the Dying
,
Poor Tom Is Cold
, and
Under the Dragon’s Tail
have all been filmed as the first three episodes of
Murder 19C
. Starring Peter Outerbridge as Murdoch and Keeley Hawes as Dr. Julia Ogden, the series has been broadcast in Canada and the U.K.
Let Loose the Dogs
and
Under the Dragon’s Tail
are being filmed in the summer of 2005.
Today, Jennings runs creative expression groups when she is not writing. Recipient of the Heritage Toronto Certificate of Commendation, she lives in Toronto with her husband and their two dogs. Please visit her Web site:
www.maureenjennings.com
.
ALSO BY MAUREEN JENNINGS
Except the Dying
Under the Dragon’s Tail
Poor Tom Is Cold
Let Loose the Dogs
Copyright © 2005 by Maureen Jennings
All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system, without the prior written consent of the publisher–or, in case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency–is an infringement of the copyright law.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Jennings, Maureen
Night’s child / Maureen Jennings.
“A Detective Murdoch mystery”.
eISBN: 978-1-55199-193-1
I. Title.
PS
8569.
E
562
N
44 2005
C
813'.54
C
2005-901553-5
We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program and that of the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Media Development Corporation’s Ontario Book Initiative. We further acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program.
McClelland & Stewart Ltd.
The Canadian Publishers
75 Sherbourne Street
Toronto, Ontario
M5A 2P9
www.mcclelland.com
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