A new, gripping, and fast-paced mystery novel that exposes the depths of corruption in Canada's national capital and reintroduces some much-loved characters from the highly-acclaimed Inspector Ramirez series.

Cover of Shadow Play book depicting light rail train on tracks in an urban environment.

Slava Kadun, an FSB agent and one of Vladimir Putin's hitmen, discovers a lucrative sideline. Instead of killing Putin's critics, he disappears them with the help of a fourteen-year-old Ukrainian computer whiz who sets them up with fake identities.

But when Slava gets a call to arrange a contract hit on an Ottawa realtor, Susan Winchester, he worries Putin may be on to him. And when he arrives in Ottawa to find the woman already dead in what looks like a professional hit, he has to track down the killer before the killer finds him. The problem is the Ottawa police are after the real killer too, and all the evidence points to Slava.

Detective Jamie Wallace is back at work after a forced two week vacation, her punishment for punching another homicide detective, Michel Tremblay, in the face. When she's ordered to partner with Tremblay to investigate Winchester's murder, she knows it's going to be tough. She and Tremblay hate each other and this one's political. The mayor owns the unit where the woman was murdered, and there's a municipal election underway.

But Jamie has no idea just how tough things are going to get. Haunted by the ghosts of the murder victim and a little boy she can't identify, she has dark family secrets that will be exposed as she and Tremblay track down a cold-blooded killer.

Shadow Play

by Peggy Blair

Trade Paperback

ISBN: 978-0-9919236-1-8

$24.99 + HST/Shipping

Inspector Ricardo Ramirez of Havana and Detective Charlie Pike of Ottawa investigate a string of women’s murders from Cuba to Canada in this gritty, compelling mystery by award-winning author Peggy Blair.

Every cop expects more violence when there’s a full moon like the one hanging in the night sky above Havana. Inspector Ricardo Ramirez is busy investigating the senseless destruction of priceless paintings at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes when his worst fears are confirmed—the body of a murdered prostitute is found near the highway with a pair of nylons tied tightly around her neck. But it’s not the death alone that horrifies Ramirez; it’s the fact the nylons are a signature of a killer whose work Ramirez has seen before, in an unsolved murder case that still haunts him.

Detective Charlie Pike of the Rideau Regional Police Force has been reviewing cold cases himself as he tries to identify links between dozens of murdered Indigenous women across Canada. When a woman’s body is discovered on the Manomin Bay First Nation, he’s sent to Northern Ontario to assist in the investigation. But it’s complicated, because Charlie Pike grew up on the Manomin Bay reserve. He knows the people who live there, including their secrets.

While both men struggle to find a vicious murderer, one thing is clear in both investigations—until they do, the killing won’t stop.

Hungry Ghosts

by Peggy Blair

Trade Paperback

ISBN: 978-0-9919236-2-5

$24.99 + HST/Shipping

Cover of Hunry Ghosts book depicting light car stuck in a foggy forest while a person looks on.

This fast-paced, expertly crafted thriller sees Ricardo Ramirez join forces with Russian Intelligence officer, Slava Kadun, to stop an international assassination, in the fourth and final book of the highly acclaimed Inspector Ramirez series.

When Mama Loa tells Inspector Ricardo Ramirez of the Havana Major Crimes Unit that people in the sky are going to die, he thinks she’s crazy. After all, there hasn’t been a violent death in Havana for months.

But when a Russian tourist is murdered, execution-style, on the Malecón, and three flight crew members die under suspicious circumstances, Ramirez starts to think that the old woman’s prophecy might be coming true. Then Russian Intelligence officer, Slava Kadun, arrives in Havana and warns Ramirez’s superiors that Russian Intelligence has intercepted electronic communications that indicate the American CIA has hired a hitman to kill the Acting President, Raúl Castro, and soon.

With the political future of Cuba at stake and only hours to find an undercover assassin, Ramirez has to join forces with Kadun. But there are circles within circles, and with so many layers of deception to unravel, Ramirez starts to wonder if Kadun is the hitman himself.

Umbrella Man

by Peggy Blair

Trade Paperback

ISBN: 978-0-9919236-3-2

$24.99 + HST/Shipping

This fast-paced sequel to SHADOW PLAY sees Detective Jamie Wallace join forces with Russian hitman, Slava Kadun, to track down a woman’s killer.

Damien Echo is a street-smart psychic scammer who takes advantage of vulnerable people. But when she meets an elderly client to help locate the woman’s missing dog, the Ouija board shoots out a plea for help along with an address, and this time Damien hasn’t done anything to manipulate the pointer. She checks it out and discovers what appears to be a suicide victim inside an unlocked apartment, as well as a carefully hidden cellphone that Damien steals.

Detective Jamie Wallace is a Homicide detective with the Rideau Regional Police in Canada’s capital. Valerie Sanderson’s death looks like a suicide, given the lack of forensic evidence, but Jamie’s gut tells her the woman was murdered and so do her visions. All she knows for sure, though, is that either the victim actually killed herself or there’s a particularly sophisticated killer who’s hidden their tracks.

As Jamie and Detective Michel Tremblay investigate the woman’s death, Jamie soon discovers that all the information she needs to solve the case is on a cellphone that she and Tremblay can’t find. And the only person who can help her reconstruct the missing data is a ruthless killer himself.

Double Vision

by Peggy Blair

Trade Paperback

978-0-9919236-4-0

$24.99 + HST/Shipping

A Scotiabank Giller Prize Readers’ Choice Winner

Shortlisted for the U.K. Debut Dagger Award

Cover of Midnight in Havana book depicting an empty Havana street at night.

In beautiful crumbling Old Havana, Canadian detective Mike Ellis hopes the sun and sand will save his troubled marriage. He doesn’t yet know that it’s dead in the water, much like the little Cuban boy last seen begging the couple for a few pesos.

For Inspector Ricardo Ramirez arresting Ellis for the boy’s murder isn’t the problem: he’s in a race against time. He has only seventy-two hours to secure an indictment and Celia Jones, an Ottawa lawyer, keeps challenging his evidence. But Ramirez has another ticking clock to deal with. He’s dying of an incurable illness that causes him to see ghosts, and the dead haunt his every step.

Midnight in Havana

by Peggy Blair

Trade Paperback

ISBN: 978-0-9919236-5-6

$24.99 + HST/Shipping

The gripping, fast-paced sequel to Peggy Blair’s critically acclaimed and award-winning debut novel, Midnight in Havana.

Inspector Ricardo Ramirez, the head of the Havana Major Crimes Unit, is haunted by the victims of his unsolved homicide cases, including an elderly woman whose dead body is discovered on New Year’s Eve. But before he can complete his investigation into her murder, he’s ordered to go to Canada and bring home Rey Callendes, a Catholic priest arrested by the RCMP for possessing child pornography on his laptop computer.

Soon after Ramirez arrives in Ottawa, women in Havana start dying from a mysterious food poisoning, one that could shut down the entire Cuban tourist industry and put others at risk if it’s not identified soon. Ramirez is powerless to do anything except hope that his friend, Hector Apiro, a brilliant forensic pathologist, can find the source of the toxin. But when it turns out that one of the poisoning victims,Hillary Ellis, is the wife of an Ottawa detective, Mike Ellis, who Ramirez was holding in custody in a Cuban jail when Hillary died, Ramirez is pulled into the investigation. Could Detective Ellis have poisoned his wife, and in doing so, killed others? And if he did, how did he get away with it?

With Apiro’s help, Ramirez not only uncovers a cold-blooded killer but untangles a web of depravity and deceit that extends from the corridors of power in the Vatican to Canada and Cuba.

Double Vision

by Peggy Blair

Trade Paperback

ISBN: 978-0-9919236-6-3

$24.99 + HST/Shipping

Cover of Capital Crimes featuring the Canadian Parliament buildings shrouded in fog

Reviews

Ramirez is a wonderful guide—hiding nothing but hoping we’ll look past the poverty, hardship and political corruption to see the beauty and humanity of this battered city.

—The New York Times

All the ingredients of the best detective novels.

—Scotland on Sunday

Terrific cop characters Ricardo Ramirez and Charlie Pike — intrepid, quietly anti-authoritarian investigators relentlessly sleuthing in their isolated corners of the world—and locations in non-touristy Cuba and the impoverished Canadian Shield make for a cracking good read.

—Winnipeg Free Press

Blair’s thriller, Hungry Ghosts, never disappoints …This series, with its study of seemingly disparate cultures that actually have a lot in common, continues to be a delight. A charming and funny, but also poignant, series.

—Chronicle Herald

Blair is on sensitive ground here, but she’s well aware of what she’s doing …The seriousness of the crimes and Blair’s critical eye for the failings of the legal institutions of two different countries add a sombre tone to an exciting procedural.

—National Post

Blair’s plotting is meticulous, inventive and oh so well played … an excellent addition to a wonderful series. Absolutely recommended.

—A Bookworms World

Heavy on atmosphere and style, the two places Blair shines.

— Margaret Cannon, Globe and Mail

Blair grows more assured with each novel … she shapes all the elements in each of the three plots into coherent and related whodunits. As a bonus, Blair rewards readers with enlightenment about the perils of ordinary life both in Cuba and on Canadian [First Nation] reserves.

—Toronto Star

Top-notch mystery … A new level of sophistication. It is hard to write about a mystery because of the risk of giving too much away. Suffice to say, this is a book worth reading. And with the establishment of two strong central characters — Ramirez and Pike — Blair has the makings of two mystery series with some real staying power. Hungry Ghosts is one of the best mysteries to come out of Ottawa this or any year.

—Ottawa Citizen

Shadow Play is as current as it is unflinchingly accurate…. A lawyer for more than 30 years before she turned to writing, Blair penned four much-admired Inspector Ramirez books between 2010 and 2016 and they were set, principally, in Havana. Her new book vividly takes readers to the ByWard Market, Westboro and the Fairmont Chateau Laurier, just for starters, while Rideau Regional Police Force Det. Jamie Wallace works to solve a particularly intriguing murder.

—Ottawa Citizen

Blair’s writing is intelligent, sharp and finely paced. Her stories are dark but dashed with hope: they concentrate on the human condition—as much for the dead as for the living—with great sensitivity and a well-timed sense of humor.

—Kirkus Reviews

Peggy Blair writes like an author possessed, with story-telling skills that make her a must-read writer beyond the mystery genre. … Blair can tell a story with the best that Canada has to offer.

—Hamilton Spectator

Crisply written, the characters in Umbrella Man are real … Blair enters the world of the thriller.

—Ottawa Citizen

Peggy Blair’s Inspector Ramirez series gets better with every book. An Ottawa lawyer, Blair has a real knack for using her Havana setting, with its eccentricities born of necessity, as both a charming backdrop and a real guide to plot lines.

—Margaret Cannon, Globe and Mail

Marvellously accomplished … Cuba is a small triumph of evocation. Blair manipulates the new characters in the book with the finesse of a card dealer dealing a hand from the bottom of the deck.

—Jack Batten, Toronto Star

About the Author