The open-and-shut case of the Fatal Flapper just won't stay closed in this thrilling and immersive novel of 1920s Vancouver — another Raincoast Noir mystery.

Miss Dora Decker doesn't look like the sort of young woman capable of stabbing her stockbroker employer twenty-five times with her high-heeled shoe; yet, thanks to a slow news day, she has become internationally famous as the Fatal Flapper, and the police are only too happy to make the arrest.

Meanwhile, Ed McCurdy, former muckraking journalist, has traded his typewriter for a career reading radio news as Mr. Good-Evening, Canada's first "radio personality." As a celebrity he draws resentment and paranoia from far and near, and he worries that the next murder victim will be himself.

Inspector Calvin Hook scours the wet, boozy streets of gritty 1920s Vancouver, piecing together a mystery that somehow connects Al Capone, Winston Churchill and Brother Osiris, the leader of a mystical cult on De Courcy Island. (From Douglas & McIntyre)

John MacLachlan Gray is a writer-composer-performer for stage, film, television, radio and print. He is a multi-award winner author of seven crime novels, including The White Angel and Vile Spirits. An officer of the Order of Canada, Gray lives in Vancouver with his wife, Beverlee and their two cats.