“People like to see people not getting away with murder,” says Cecily Devereux, an English professor at the University of Alberta. She teaches a course called Women Writers and Detective Fiction, and provides some insight into why we’re hooked on whodunnits. “For the most part, I would say the classic whodunnit will have somebody being caught and justice being served in some way for having committed this crime. And that’s a really nice way to have order affirmed — an affirmation that people don’t get away with crimes.”
And right now, when the world feels particularly chaotic, that promise of resolution hits differently. “If you go back to moments of popular interest in detective fiction or murder mysteries, you might be able to align that interest with moments of chaos,” Devereux notes. “By piecing things together, you can make sense of what otherwise seems chaotic.”
The whodunnit isn’t going anywhere. From cosy small-town murders to wilderness thrillers, University of Alberta-connected authors are crafting mysteries that keep readers up way past bedtime. Whether you’re Team Hard-boiled Detective or you prefer your sleuths with a side of magic realism, here are some page-turners by U of A writers.
1: Heart of a Runaway Girl
Trevor Wiltzen, ’95 BA, ’00 BSc, ’13 MBA, writes mysteries that hit you in the gut. His debut novel introduces Mabel Davison, a diner owner and single mom in a 1980s Pacific Northwest mountain town who gets pulled into investigating the murder of a teenage runaway. What starts as a grim street killing unravels into something far more sinister, tangled up with racism and a local drug lord who rules the town with an iron fist.
The Mabel Davison series has been called “powerful,” “intense,” and “absolutely addictive” by readers. Wiltzen, who lives in Edmonton and works as a director at Mitacs, spent years honing his craft in coffee shops before work. The series now includes Missed Me and Haunting Pasts (winner of Best Suspense novel from Pacific Book Review). His books prove you don't need a big-city setting to tell stories about darkness — sometimes the most dangerous secrets hide in small towns where everyone knows your name.
2: The Red Chesterfield
What happens when a bylaw officer finds a red couch — and a severed foot — in a ditch? Wayne Arthurson’s 2019 novella takes that premise and runs it through a blender with magic realism, creating something wholly original in Canadian crime fiction.
Arthurson, who served as U of A’s 2023-24 writer-in-residence, is known for pushing boundaries and challenging stereotypes in mystery writing. A writer of Cree and French-Canadian descent, he has made his mark with the Leo Desroches series (featuring a Métis journalist with a gambling addiction investigating crimes in Edmonton) and historical mysteries like Traitors of Camp 133, set in a Second World War prisoner-of-war camp in Alberta. But The Red Chesterfield, which won the Arthur Ellis Award for best novella, shows him at his most playful — a mystery that honours genre conventions while gleefully messing with them. The protagonist, M, is more interested in what happens to the furniture than the origin of the body part. It’s odd, it’s funny and it works.
3: Jasper Wild
George Mercer, ’94 BSc(Hons) spent more than 30 years as a national park warden before he started writing the “Dyed in the Green” series — the first fiction series ever written about Canada’s national parks. His mysteries follow park wardens Ben Matthews and Kate Jones as they investigate crimes from Cape Breton to the Rockies, with the parks themselves becoming characters in the story.
Jasper Wild, the third book in the series, is set in Jasper National Park where Mercer himself worked. Park wardens Matthews and Jones find themselves caught up in a mystery surrounding a proposed backcountry lodge that would dominate prime wilderness. The book tackles real issues — the tension between wilderness preservation and commercial development, the politics of park management — while delivering a solid thriller. Mercer’s books have won multiple Independent Publisher Book Awards, and readers call them essential reading for anyone who cares about conservation. They’re mysteries with a mission.
4: The Adventures of Isabel
A nameless, pansexual social worker. A cat named Bunnywit. A murdered granddaughter. Candas Jane Dorsey’s 2020 novel launches the Epitome Apartments Mystery series with wit, heart, and a healthy disregard for convention.
Dorsey, ’75 BA, is an internationally acclaimed writer best known for her award-winning science fiction, but the Isabel series proves she’s equally adept at crime fiction. The detective (she's never named in the books) swaggers through Edmonton’s mean streets with “judicious use of the Oxford comma, pop culture trivia, common mystery tropes, and a keen eye for deceit.” The series, which continues with What’s the Matter with Mary Jane? and He Wasn’t There Again Today, has been praised for its playful approach to genre and its unapologetically queer protagonist. Dorsey, who has been a major force in Edmonton’s literary scene for decades, brings the same experimental energy to mysteries that she brought to speculative fiction.
5: Hate Cell
When 13-year-old Casey Templeton seeks shelter from a snowstorm in an abandoned farmhouse, he stumbles onto something terrifying: a sophisticated white supremacist operation complete with computers, printers and racist propaganda. His nearly frozen science teacher is somehow connected to it, and soon Casey is pulled into an investigation involving the RCMP and his hacker brother.
Gwen Molnar, ’48 Dip(Ed), ’49 BEd, ’79 BA, created the Casey Templeton Mystery series for young adult readers, tackling serious issues in fast-paced stories set in contemporary Alberta. The series continues with Old Bones, where Casey’s field trip to the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller leads him to overhear a plot to steal dinosaur bones. Molnar, an Edmonton-born poet, painter, and writer, crafted mysteries designed for reluctant readers — short, gripping, and very Alberta. She set her stories in places young readers would recognize, from small-town hockey rinks to world-famous museums, proving that mystery and danger don’t just live in big cities.
6: Fall from Grace
Before Wayne Arthurson was playing with genre in The Red Chesterfield, he created Leo Desroches — a Métis journalist battling gambling addiction and a knack for finding trouble. Fall From Grace, which won the $10,000 Alberta Reader’s Choice Award in 2012, introduces Leo as he investigates a series of murders targeting Edmonton’s most vulnerable residents.
Arthurson’s Leo Desroches series (A Killing Winter, Blood Red Summer) does something crucial: it centres Indigenous experience in urban crime fiction while refusing to make that experience a tragic stereotype. Leo is complicated, flawed, real. The mysteries work as page-turners, but they’re also doing important work in representation. Arthurson, who lives in Edmonton, has been a strong voice in Canadian crime fiction, advocating for diverse stories and diverse protagonists. His books show that the best mysteries don’t just solve crimes — they challenge us to see the world differently.