Saskatchewan is one of Canada’s ‘prairie provinces,’ so it’s part of the nation’s ‘breadbasket.’  There are larger cities (e.g. Regina and Saskatoon), but there are also many smaller towns and rural areas. There’s a lot of Ukrainian influence as well as First Nations influence. There are farms, outdoor sports….and crime. Well, that is, if you read crime fiction. Don’t let Saskatchewan’s peaceful appearance fool you; crime can happen anywhere, even there. To really get a sense of novels based in Saskatchewan, you’ll want to read Bill Selnes’ excellent blog Mysteries and More From Saskatchewan. He offers a whole page of Saskatchewan fiction on his blog. I’ll just mention a few examples here to give you a sense of the crime fiction that takes place there.

Anthony Bidlulka’s Russell Quant is a Saskatoon-based PI. He is also a former cop, and still has a few people in the police department who’ll talk to him. In the first novel, Amuse Bouche, Harold Chavell hires Quant to find his missing fiancé, Tom Osborn. The trail leads to France and back, and when Osborn’s body is discovered, the case turns from a missing person case to murder. Besides the Russell Quant series, Bidulka has also written two novels featuring Adam Saint, a Disaster Recovery Agent, as well as a new series featuring PI Merry Bell. He’s also the author of Going to Beautiful, in which celebrity chef Jake Hardy makes a trip to Beautiful, Saskatchewan, after the death of his beloved husband Eddie Kravetz. In that novel especially, we see what life is like in a small Saskatchewan town. There’s a rich sense of community, and a real feel for the mutual support that people give each other in small Saskatchewan towns.

Possibly the best-known Saskatchewan series is Gail Bowen’s Joanne Kilbourne Shreve series. She is a political scientist and academic (retired in the most recent novels), who gets drawn into murder cases in a number of ways. In Deadly Appearances, she’s at a community barbecue when a friend and political ally (and up-and-coming politician) is murdered during a speech he’s giving. In A Killing Spring, a colleague is found murdered in a seedy rooming house, and Joanne is asked to give the news to his wife, whom she knows. And in 12 Rose Street, Joanne’s husband Zack is in a hotly contested campaign for mayor of Regina. But someone is determined that things will remain the way they are, and that includes a new project Zack has been spearheading: the Racette-Hunter Centre, designed to support those in need in the city. In all of the novels, we see what life is like in some of Saskatchewan’s larger cities. We also get a sense of the smaller communities, too. And since Joanne is a political expert, we also get a feel for provincial and even national-level politics.

Nelson Brunanski has written three novels featuring John ‘Bart’ Bartowski. Bart and his wife Rosie live in the small town of Crooked Lake. They also own a fishing lodge in the northern part of Saskatchewan. In this series, there’s a solid sense of small-town and farming life in the province. There’s also a sense of community as we get to know some of the people who live in Crooked Lake. Bart himself is what you might call an ‘everyman.’ He has no deep desire to solve crime or to get involved in murder. But in Crooked Lake, he’s drawn in when someone he knows is accused of murder. In Frost Bite, he discovers a frozen body under a pile of wheat. And in Burnt Out, Bart and Rosie’s fishing lodge is destroyed in a clear case of arson, and Bart becomes (as you would expect) a suspect. In all of these books, we get a sense of small-town Saskatchewan, the different cultural influences there, and the social life.

Alison Gordon’s series features Kate Henry, a Toronto-based sports reporter whose main sports interest is baseball. In Prairie Hardball, the fifth and final novel in the series, Kate and her partner, homicide detective Andy Munro, travel to Saskatchewan. For Kate, it’s a homecoming, since she grew up in the province. It seems that Kate’s mother, Helen ‘Wheels’ MacLaren Henry, is being inducted into the Saskatchewan Baseball Hall of Fame, and Kate and Andy will attend the ceremony. All of the members of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (think A League of Their Own) will be inducted, and it’s a major event. What Kate doesn’t know at first is that the members had been receiving threatening notes. They didn’t pay much attention to them, but then, one of them is found dead. Now, Kate is drawn into the murder mystery.

Stephen Legault’s The Third Riel Conspiracy takes place in 1885. A group of Métis and associated First Nations people are involved in a rebellion against the Canadian government. They believe the government is not respecting their rights or their land, and they’re not being heard. Against this backdrop, Durant Wallace of the Northwest Mounted Police (today, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police) is assigned a difficult case. A Métis fighter named Terrence La Biche is arrested for murdering Reuben Wake, whose body is found in a Canadian encampment. But La Biche may not be guilty. The case may be related to the Riel rebellion, or it may not. If it’s not, and if La Biche is innocent, then who is guilty and what’s the motive? Among other things, this book offers some history of the indigenous people of the area.

There are other books, too, of course, that show what life in Saskatchewan is like. Oh, yes, there are tight-knit communities, delicious food, farming, celebrations, and more. But as you can see, there’s murder, too…    Now, treat yourself and find out more about Saskatchewan crime fiction at Bill’s excellent blog. You won’t regret it.

ps Thanks, Tourism Saskatchewan, for the great photo!

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from the Grass Roots’ Runnin’ Back to Saskatoon.