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Port Alberni mystery author hits the road with The Three Tremors

Port Alberni’s Joan Donaldson-Yarmey will be part of a murderous reading in the bowels of the Vancouver Public Library.

Port Alberni’s Joan Donaldson-Yarmey will be part of a murderous reading in the bowels of the Vancouver Public Library.

 

Donaldson-Yarmey is teaming up with fellow B.C. mystery authors Don Hauka and Robin Spano for a very special joint-reading in Vancouver, part of VPL’s Popular Reading Library program.

 

The Three Tremors: A trio of unabashedly Canadian Sleuths features Donaldson-Yarmey and company reading from their latest works and taking part in a question and answer session on April 11, 2011, 7:00-8:30 p.m. at VPL’s Central Branch. Admission is free.

 

Can a travel writer’s romance survive her investigation of a death on the Prairies? Will a young female undercover cop have her cover blown before she nails a mayor’s murderer? And just how is a chain-smoking, hypochondriac reporter supposed to make a buck on the side when there’s a beheaded street youth’s bizarre slating to unravel? Donaldson-Yarmey, Spano and Hauka bring their trio of eccentric investigators to life during this reading to die for.

 

Donaldson-Yarmey’s detective, Edmonton travel writer Elizabeth Oliver, is researching a new article when an unexpected romance leads to a new murder mystery. In The Only Shadow in the House (Sumach Press), Oliver helps the handsome wheelchair basketball coach Jared hunt for the truth about his mother's death. Once Elizabeth and Jared arrive in Redwater and start asking difficult questions about the past, they realize not everyone wants this mystery to be solved...

 

Born in New Westminster and raised in Edmonton, Donaldson-Yarmey is the author of seven Backroads Series books about Alberta, B.C., Yukon and Alaska published by Lone Pine Publishing in Edmonton. She’s published two novels in her Travelling Detective Series, Illegally Dead (2008) and The Only Shadow in the House (2010).  Her short story, A Capital Offence, received Ascent Aspirations First Prize for Flash Fiction.

 

A writer who loves change, Donaldson-Yarmey moved over 30 times before settling down in the Port Alberni Valley with her husband, five cats and four chickens.

 

Donaldson-Yarmey’s partners in crime both hail from the Lower Mainland. Richmond-based Spano’s series features Clare Vengel, a young undercover cop. In Dead Politician Society (ECW Press, 2010), Clare masquerades as a student when a secret university society is suspected of engineering the death of the mayor. The second Clare Vengel book, Death Plays Poker (to be released October 2011), takes Clare undercover as a player on a world class poker tour.

 

Hauka created his journalistic sleuth, Hakeem Jinnah, based on his former Province newspaper colleague, Salim Jiwa. The second in his series, Mister Jinnah: She Demons (Dundurn Press, 2010) has the headline-chasing hypochondriac racing to find a killer and help save his buddy Sergeant Graham's career. But a bevy of She Demons bedevils him at each turn. Soon Jinnah is entangled in a cultic web that threatens his friends, his family, and his life. Hauka, a former journalist, lives in New Westminster.

 

The three authors are all members of the Crime Writers of Canada – a national, non-profit organization for Canadian mystery and crime writers, associated professionals and others with a serious interest in Canadian crime writing. The CWC has sponsored Canada's Arthur Ellis Awards for Crime and Mystery Writing since 1984.