Local author wins best crime novel
Shane Peacock
By: Cecilia Nasmith, Northumberland 89.7 FM News
May 30 was a great day for local author Shane Peacock, when it was announced he was selected for the Crime Writers of Canada Award of Excellence for Best Crime Novel.
As We Forgive Others, launched just last fall by Cormorant Books, won the prize for Best Crime Novel Set in Canada.
Judges cited “the brooding atmosphere of a rural Ontario winter” which Peacock said in an interview at the time could have been modeled on Cobourg (where he held an official launch in November).
Protagonist Hugh Mercer, a New York homicide detective escaping a shattered marriage and career, settles into an old rented farmhouse in this area, but fails to find the peace he craves when a mysterious caller predicts a murder.
“The author's wry humour shows when Mercer compares dangerously polite Canadians, bereft of emotion, to his transparent American countrymen,” the judges' comments read.
His caller, a laconic local cop named Alice Morrow, proves to be “secretive and incomprehensible, like the Canadian winter. Together, they solve the ingenious mystery, but Mercer is left without answers or forgiveness for his own broken story.”
Peacock said in his interview that he based the style of this novel on Stieg Larsson's Girl With The Dragon Tattoo series.
With this award, he said on the day of the announcement, “I think only Linwood Barclay and I have now won an Award of Excellence for books for both young readers and adults.”
That was his last book. Peacock's next book comes out June 7.
Called simply Show, it takes place in an alternate 1899 in which a teenage contortionist frees a talented showman from captivity in a sideshow. The two flee across the Empire of America to escape their pursuer, an evil entertainment entrepreneur/presidential candidate, recruiting other performers trapped in brutal working conditions, and put together the greatest show on Earth.
