Buffalo Jump

Toronto investigator Jonah Geller is at a low point in his life.

A careless mistake on his last case left him with a bullet in his arm, a busted relationship and a spot in his boss's doghouse.

Then he comes home to find notorious contract killer Dante Ryan in his apartment - not to kill him for butting into mob business, as Jonah fears, but to plead for Jonah's help. Ryan has been ordered to wipe out an entire Toronto family, including a five-year-old boy.

With a son of his own that age, Ryan can't bring himself to do it.

He challenges Jonah to find out who ordered the hit.

With help from his friend Jenn, Jonah investigates the boy's father - a pharmacist who seems to lead a good life - and soon finds himself ducking bullets and dodging blades from all directions.

When the case takes Jonah and Ryan over the river to Buffalo, where good clean Canadian pills are worth their weight in gold, their unseen enemies move in for the kill. Buffalo Jump debuted to rave reviews in 2008 and won the Crime Writers of Canada's highest award for excellence in crime fiction: the Arthur Ellis Award for best first novel. Critics hailed its engaging characters, whip-smart dialogue, twisting plot and devastating consequences.

They called it a page-turner to rate with the best and a great summer read. They told readers to expect a barreling freight train of a mystery, with waves of action that barely allowed you to catch your breath between eruptions.

They noted the mix of cynicism and dark humor that mark the best private-eye novels.

They cheered the pairing of a flawed protagonist with a conflicted past and an equally complex hit man trying to change his life. Above all, they hailed Howard Shrier's strong, clear voice, assured style and killer sense of humor, and marked him as an author to watch for in Canada and abroad.