Maple Mysteries
A directory of mystery novels set across Canada organized by place, series, and author.
Mystery Series Set in Canada
Benny Cooperman
by Howard Engel
The Benny Cooperman series is a collection of mystery novels by Howard Engels, featuring the witty and kind detective Benny…
Chad Hobbes Historical Crimes
by Seán Haldane
The Chad Hobbes Historical Crime series by Seán Haldane is a collection of detective mysteries set in the Victorian era.…
Charlie Salter
by Eric Wright
The Charlie Salter mystery series by Eric Wright follows Toronto police inspector Charlie Salter through 11 compelling investigations…
Chief Inspector Gamache
by Louise Penny
The series, also known as the Three Pines Mysteries, follows Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Sûreté du Québec as he…
Collins-Burke Mysteries
by Anne Emery
The series follows the adventures of Monty Collins, a defense attorney, and Brennan Burke, a Catholic priest, as they solve…
Constable Molly Smith Mysteries
by Vicki Delany
The series follows rookie constable Molly Smith as she navigates the challenges of her new role while solving crimes that…
Dr. Zol Szabo Medical Mysteries
by Ross Pennie
The series follows Dr. Zol Szabo, a trauma surgeon who, after facing personal tragedy and a series of mysterious deaths,…
Ellis Portal Mysteries
by Rosemary Aubert
The hero, Ellis Portal is down on his luck, fallen from his role as a respected judge and family man to the poverty-ridden…
Gasper's Cove Mysteries
by Barbara Emodi
The Gasper's Cove Mysteries by Barbara Emodi is a cozy mystery series set in a fictional Nova Scotia town. The series…
Glenmere Box Mysteries
by Lisa Adair
A mystery series set in the 1980s small-town of Glenmere, Saskatchewan
Grub-and-Stakers
by Charlotte MacLeod
The Grub-And-Stakers Mystery Series by Alisa Craig, also known as Charlotte MacLeod, is a cozy mystery series set in the…
Highclere Inn & Carriage House Mysteries
by Josh Hellyer
A laugh-out-loud mystery series set in the Muskoka Lakes area.
Hygge House Nordic Mysteries
by A. L. Jensen
Hygge House Mysteries: where murder meets Scandinavian comfort in a rustic northern Ontario town.
John Cardinal and Lise Delorme
by Giles Blunt
The John Cardinal and Lise Delorme series by Giles Blunt consists of six novels, each set in the fictional town of Algonquin…
Klondike Mystery Series
by Vicki Delany
Series set in Dawson City, Yukon, during the Great Klondike Gold Rush of 1898
Lane Winslow Mysteries
by Iona Whishaw
The books are set in 1946 in a charming backwater community in BC that the author lived in as a child. It is a community…
Madoc and Janet Rhys Mysteries
by Charlotte MacLeod
The Madoc & Janet Rhys mystery series is a cozy mystery series by Canadian-American novelist Charlotte MacLeod, known…
Nadine Lavoie
by Chevy Stevens
Nadine Lavoie is a psychiatrist who helps others confront their inner demons while grappling with her own traumatic past.
Sebastian Synard Mysteries
by Kevin Major
The Sebastian Synard Mysteries follow the adventures of a private detective and tour guide, Sebastian Synard, as he navigates…
Senior Sleuth Series
by Maureen Fisher
The Senior Sleuth series by Maureen Fisher follows three women of 'a certain age' who inherit a dude ranch and…
Small-Town Saskatchewan Mysteries
by Nelson Brunanski
The Crooked Lake series by Nelson Brunanski is a small-town Saskatchewan mystery series that captures the essence of rural…
Temperance Brennan
by Kathy Reichs
The Temperance Brennan series, written by Kathy Reichs, features a forensic anthropologist who investigates crimes in Montreal.…
The Falls Mysteries
by J. E. Barnard
The Falls Mysteries series by J.E. Barnard is a crime fiction series that revolves around ex-Mountie Lacey McCrae, who becomes…
The Shores Mysteries
by Hilary MacLeod
The Shores Mysteries is a series that immerses readers in the quirky and colorful world of The Shores, a fishing village…
Tom & Liz Austen Mysteries
by Eric Wilson
The Tom & Liz Austen Mysteries series by Eric Wilson is a collection of young adult detective novels that follow the…
Verona Montero
by Kayleigh Suggett
Wisecracking PI Verona Montero takes on outrageous cases with sharp instincts, sharper humour, and a talent for stumbling…
Stand-alone Canadian Mysteries
A Minor Chorus
An unnamed narrator abandons his unfinished thesis and returns to northern Alberta in search of what eludes him: the shape of the novel he yearns to write, an autobiography of his rural hometown, the answers to existential questions about family, love, and happiness.
A Winter Kill
by Vicki Delany
Nicole Patterson is a young, green and very eager probationary constable with the Ontario Provincial Police. Although she spends much of her time breaking up bar fights, giving out traffic tickets and finding lost kids, she dreams of one day becoming a detective. Late one bitterly cold winter night, she comes across the body of a young woman lying on the edge of a snow-covered field on the outskirts of town. The girl appears to have been strangled. Nicole recognizes the victim as a local high school…
Body in the Back Garden
by Mark Waddell
Crescent Cove, a small hamlet on Vancouver Island, is the last place out-of-work investigative journalist Luke Tremblay ever wanted to see again. He used to spend summers here, until his family learned that he was gay and rejected him. Now, following his aunt’s sudden death, he’s inherited her entire estate, including her seaside cottage and the antiques shop she ran for forty years in Crescent Cove. Luke plans to sell everything and head back to Toronto as soon as he can…but Crescent Cove isn’t…
Hitchhikers
It’s the summer of 1976 and Alice and Tom set out on the remote Canadian highways in their new RV, hoping to heal their broken hearts after a devastating tragedy. They’ve planned the trip perfectly, taken care of every detail. Then they meet two young hitchhikers down on their luck and offer them a ride. But Simon and Jenny aren’t what they seem. They’ve left a trail of blood, destruction, and madness behind them. Now Alice and Tom are trapped, prisoners in a deadly game, with nowhere to turn. As…
How Elvis saved Quebec
Residents of a small Quebec village, half French and half English, are feuding as the referendum on separation from Canada approaches. Meanwhile, an Arab entrepreneur is busy buying property (restaurant, hardware store, marina, large houses), and an Abenaki Indian with a law degree from McGill has arrived in town, allegedly for the spring fishing.
Killings at Little Rose
Private investigator Anne Brown works undercover at a seafood plant plagued by vandalism, loss, and bad luck. Meanwhile,residents of Little Rose Harbour are shocked by the discovery of secretly-hidden human remains. Violence erupts, entangled secrets come to light, and Anne faces death.
Let it ride
Vernard ‘Get’ McGetty is back from serving in Afghanistan, back dealing drugs in Detroit and looking to move up with his buddy JT, a guy he met in Kandahar who also happens to be the leader of the Saints of Hell—a notorious Ontario biker gang currently in the process of taking over all North of the border drug traffic. Commuting weekly across the line into the center of JT’s high flying empire, Get hooks up with Sunitha, a decidedly independent woman who’s gone from working seedy massage parlors…
Little Spoons
After the unexpected death of her grandmother, Mary inherits her property and returns home to western Newfoundland with her young son. When she uncovers curious items that may be clues about her grandmother’s fate, Mary begins to unravel the secrets surrounding a string of suspicious disappearances and deaths in the community—deaths that always seem to involve women. Demons from the past catch up with Mary as she learns of her grandmother’s isolation from her peers. Discovering stories of witchcraft…
Memo to Murder
Heidi MacDonald is not qualified for her new job at the Legislature with Official Opposition. She has never voted, or can’t remember when. Her research experience amounts to one letter published in a sewing magazine. She lives in her parents’ basement with a cat named Gilbert. Her direct supervisor considers her a useful fall guy, her chief of staff plays solitaire all day, and the MLA she’s been assigned to, spends most of his time at the Legion. Then an anonymous message appears on Heidi’s office…
Murder as a Fine Art
When artists, writers, and performers gather at the Banff Centre for the Arts, the serene mountain setting is meant to inspire creativity. However, the peace is shattered when playwright Alan Montrose is found dead. While initially dismissed as an accident, the subsequent fiery death of artist Erika Dekter makes it clear that a killer is lurking within the colony. Aspiring painter Laura Janeway takes it upon herself to investigate, but as she navigates a web of professional jealousies, secret affairs,…
Off Season
by Amber Cowie
While recovering from a professional setback, documentary filmmaker Jane Duvall stays at a remote hotel during the off season with her new contractor husband, Dom, and his daughter, Sienna. Surrounded by an immense forest and the mighty Fraser River, Jane wants nothing more than to bond with her new family. But she’s unsettled by the cold, quiet presence of the hotel’s owner, Peter, who is overseeing Dom’s renovations. When she starts asking questions, Dom grows distant and Sienna becomes belligerent.…
Searching for Terry Punchout
Adam Macallister's sportswriting career is about to end before it begins, but he's got one last shot--a Sports Illustrated profile about hockey's most notorious goon, the reclusive Terry Punchout--who also happens to be Adam's estranged father. Adam returns to Pennington, Nova Scotia, where Terry now lives in the local rink and drives the Zamboni. Going home means drinking with old friends, revisiting neglected relationships, and dealing with lingering feelings about his father and dead mother--and…
Still missing
On the day she was abducted, Annie O’Sullivan, a 32-year-old realtor, had three goals - sell a house, forget about a recent argument with her mother, and be on time for dinner with her ever-patient boyfriend. The open house is slow, but when her last visitor pulls up in a van as she's about to leave, Annie thinks it just might be her lucky day after all.
That Night
As a teenager, Toni Murphy had a life full of typical adolescent complications: a boyfriend she adored, a younger sister she couldn't relate to, a strained relationship with her parents, and classmates who seemed hell-bent on making her life miserable. Things weren't easy, but Toni could never have predicted how horrific they would become until her younger sister was brutally murdered one summer night. Toni and her boyfriend, Ryan, were convicted of the murder and sent to prison. Now thirty-four,…
The Cure for Drowning
Born Kathleen to an immigrant Irish farming family in southern Ontario, Kit McNair has been a troublesome changeling since, at ten, they fell through the river ice and drowned—only to be nursed back to life by their mother's Celtic magic. A daredevil in boy's clothes, Kit chafes at every aspect of a farmgirl's life, driving that same mother to distraction with worry about where Kit will ever fit in. When Rebekah Kromer, an elegant German-Canadian doctor's daughter, moves to town with her parents…
The Judas conspiracy
The Judas Conspiracy by John Ballem is a political thriller set against the backdrop of an Alberta separatist movement. The story begins when Peter Groves arrives in Calgary during the Stampede, only to be drawn into a dangerous conspiracy led by Charles Thompson and the Thompson group. As they orchestrate a plot to separate Alberta from Canada, Groves must navigate high-stakes tensions that threaten the nation's unity and energy security.
Tumblin' Dice
The High, a band with a few hit songs in the late 1970s, have reunited to play the nostalgia circuit at casinos. But for bassist Barry and lead singer Cliff, this tour promises to be unforgettable and even more worthwhile than ever. In this fourth installment of the Toronto series, these two band members turn the tables on the gritty underworld of casinos, as they rob the loan sharks and drug dealers who work at every stop of the tour. After finding their old manager who had swindled millions from…