The Hill Times: Best Books of 2017What are the limits of Canadian democracy and how are they being expanded by a revolution in participatory democracy?The Brexit vote in Britain and the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States illustrate that our system of representative democracy is in deep trouble.There are signs of political alienation everywhere. Most believe that government is run by a few big interests. Wealthy corpo...

2015 Speaker's Book Award — ShortlistedCity planning in the GTHA has been mired in political grandstanding for the past decade, The New Urban Agenda offers a plain language solution to the issues plaguing the GTHA.Politics in the Greater Toronto, Hamilton Area (GTHA) have become increasingly divisive over the past decade, and solutions to the city’s problems have become hot-topic issues debated in council and the press, but never finding r...

Hard Riding is a detective novel set in Toronto that explores an accident on the city streets. A young mother, riding her bicycle home from work, is struck and killed by a car driven by a man who appears to be a respectable businessman.As Mariner, a detective with the Toronto Police Department, probes deeper into the case he finds that Charles Abbott, the driver of the car, is out of control. Witnesses say he was driving erratically at the time of the accident.But Abbott come...

Deep Denial, part popular history and part personal memoir, documents the 400-year racialization of the United States and how people of European descent came to be called white. Author David Billings focuses primarily on the deeply embedded notion of white supremacy, and tells us why, despite the Civil Rights Movement and an African-American president, we remain, in the words of the author, a nation hard-wired by race. A master storyteller, Billings starts each chapter with a disarming and...

The evening of May 10, 1970, found a young Watt M. Casey Jr. standing awestruck, only a few feet from Jimi Hendrix as the legendary guitarist tore into his unique arrangement of “The Star-Spangled Banner” on the stage of San Antonio’s Hemisphere Arena during the Texas leg of his Cry of Love Tour. Bemoaning the fact that he had no camera to document the amazing experience or the visionary musicians creating it, Watt promised himself that he would make up for his oversight in the weeks and y...

Gina Perini manages a bookstore in one of San Francisco's most lively neighborhoods. Although she thrives in her world of books, her harrowing escape from the war in the Balkans years earlier remains fresh in her mind. There are still those who are searching for her and who are intent on vengeance. Gina suddenly gets news that someone from her past is still alive—someone she had given up hope of finding. This sets in motion a chain of events that will stretch across the country and push he...

YOU CAN'T KEEP A GOOD WOMAN DOWNNot even one of Ireland's best detectives can catch these killers.In a secluded cove just outside the reaches of the city of Cork, a woman wakes up buried in the sand, unable to pull herself free. The gulls wheel silently overhead, oblivious to her nightmare…DS Katie Maguire of the Cork Garda is soon tracking the terrifying gang of torturers who call themselves the High Kings of Erin. But, somehow, th...

FROM THE MIND OF THE MILLION-COPY BESTSELLER M.J. ARLIDGE COMES THE BRAND NEW SERIAL KILLER THRILLER STARRING DETECTIVE INSPECTOR HELEN GRACE...* * * * *"You have one hour to live."Those are the only words on the phone call. Then they hang up. Surely, a prank? A mistake? A wrong number? Anything but the chilling truth... That someone is watching, waiting, working to take your life in one hour.But w...

A web of lies. A confusion of secrets. A maze of murder.In a quiet Manchester suburb, a man sets himself on fire in a petrol station. Nearby, a fourteen-year-old girl murders her mother in cold blood.At the Coroner's Officer, Detective Inspector Ridpath is called in to investigate both of these baffling deaths. Is one a suicide and and the other an unexplained murder? Or does something more sinister link the two seemingly unconnected tragedies?As ...

The No.1 bestseller returns with a nail-biting new PC Phil McCarthy book. If you loved When You Are Mine or are hunting for thrillers that make you think and feel, you won't want to miss this.As a police officer and the daughter of a London crime boss, Philomena McCarthy's loyalties are torn between two worlds.When she discovers a child wandering the streets during a night-time patrol, she's catapulted into the scene of a home invasion. Meanwhile...

The number one bestseller and Sunday Times Humour Book of the Year by national treasure Bob Mortimer.‘The most life-affirming, joyful read of the year’ - Sunday Times‘Winningly heartfelt’ – The Guardian‘A triumph’ – Daily MailBob Mortimer’s life was trundling along happily until suddenly in 2015 he was diagnosed with a heart condition that required immediate...

The second gripping thriller in the Kate Brannigan series, from No.1 Sunday Times bestseller Val McDermid.‘No one can plot or tell a story like McDermid’ ExpressPI Kate Brannigan is hired to investigate a series of strange financial scams across Manchester. At first it looks like a discrepancy with the paperwork, but the deeper Kate digs, the murkier the case becomes.Before long she’s up to her neck in crooked land deals – and murder – and her own l...